A Broke Down Warrior Says a Prayer

by Robin T.

I had given up on my marching orders

when I took the shot to my gut.

Herein lies the ultimate prayer to the higher self

As it watched the root of my soul lay bleeding like an ulcer.

Open—red—yielding its wound for mankind.

Remarkably my heart remain untouched –

that sour and bitter irony – when all these years it was

the heart that I had worked to protect, to shield

and self-torture in dark moments.

But the barren bitterness, the emptiness

the sheer loneliness could only be

felt at the pit of my gut as it lay in tatters and ribbons

and rolled across the dirt floor

in a convoluted pattern of shame.

I knew better than to hang on, to hold out

like some outcast woman too old to care,

when clutching could only make the pain more intense

as it gripped and rolled like a thundercloud – as if I could hear

the crashing sounds of a 100-year-old secret,

a 100-year-old story

screaming unspoken memories,

a torrent of life’s pictures across my mind.

It was in this graceful moment when I

finally gave in, finally gave up and my iron-clad will

loosened its grip on this torrent

it could never hold back.

It was in this final moment of deliverance

that the broke down warrior said a prayer.