Between Lust for Love and Love 12a

Sweet Hope Gone

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The words fall like lead at my feet. The court is quiet…the judge looks at me for my defense, but I have none.

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I look desperately towards the courtroom doors; they remain silently closed. No hope of a hero is in sight. The man in gray points the way back to a life beside him, the dove lays dead on the floor in its blood.

My hope is gone now. Guilty as charged, sentenced to a life of broken love and loneliness; of emptiness and of shame.

I step down from the Defendants stand and begin to walk. My footsteps sound sharp and unreal as they echo through my ears. Enmity walks a foot in front, his hands cold, dripping with lies.

It seems forever, the time that passes walking back down that wooden isle from where I first came searching for freedom and life; I now walked back in chains. In a numb and quiet place tears choke deep inside of me, in places I did not know were even there.

I stop and cannot take another step when I approach the dove at my feet. The heaviness that covers me is too much to bear. Out loud I cry “Is there no hope for me?” but knew there would be no reply.  I reach down, lifting the dove up as I kneel there on the floor. Tears fall quickly and all I can do is just cry.

 

I Won't Go

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The court room buzzes with the sound of screeching chairs as its occupants dismiss themselves as in conclusion of the day. My heartbeat pounds inside my chest as I glance around longing for just one to care.  

"Won't just one of you free me?  Won't just one of you tell me I don’t deserve the cold unloving touch of Enmity any longer?"  I look down at the floor, closing my eyes with hopelessness.  "Won't just one of you tell me I'm worth being loved?"

The onlookers stop their rustlings and stare in silence at my words. Enmity turns around. His icy blue gaze catches me, his mouth twisting slightly in impatient disgust. “The court is over, don’t you see that?"   He yells in disgust.  "Or do you insist on behaving in the same pittifull way as that day at the fair when he broke your heart?” He moves his hand towards me, gripping my wrist firmly. “It’s time we go!”

The world seems to stop as Enmity's words wash through my mind with startling familiarity.  "Wait."  I say as I gaze upwards at my enemies angry face.  My eyes widen as I realize that it's my very own face looking back at me.   

"Stop."  I whisper, my frame filling with certainty of what I must do.

My arm is immediately released as I look around, stunned with the realization that my courtroom reality was the product of my own mind.  I look back at Enmity, who now calmly stands by, his figure fading quickly out of sight like a grand illusion that was never there at all.

CHAPTER 13

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