Unpardoned
She fills her drawer with letters she will never send to him, pleated sheets of paper whose margins are dabbed with inks and scripts he'd otherwise not hear said out loud.
In her mind she has repeated many times the stories she's wanted to tell him and when she imagines his lovely face grinning at the content of her words she too would smile to herself, knowing that in his incarceration he'd once in a while find relief in her words. He would never have to breathe alone anymore or stare at the same patch of sky without sharing it with anyone or even whisper words in the wind while everyone else has sunk to the bottom of their dreams, glad to be at least alive.
She has promised him in those letters that he would never have to spend a single moment by himself from then.
But the letters stay untouched and the words remain unread. From thousands of miles away he saunters up and down his cell as his steps hammer down the cold concrete whose every space has kissed his soles so many times over. His hair has grown longer than the years he's spent in confinement, his eyes darkened, seeming to have lost their powers to reflect. Lines too have begun stretching out like peripheral veins on his face, counted in ages but never denying a weary fight he no longer wants to continue. His lips have been pursed far too long to ever know which words to produce.
He doesn't wait for her letters. He knows not that she's written them. He only waits for the beacon of his doom, the price he has to pay. When the time comes to breathe his last, he would no longer wave to the audience or give them the charming smirk he's won them over with; instead, he would raise his eyes from the ground and try to recall the basic rules of atonement and forgiveness, salvation and peace, life and death. The thread would snap to put an end to two decades of confinement. Even then, everything that has tied him to the world would slowly uncoil itself to crawl away slyly and choke yet another living thing. If he believes in the soul, that, too, would be his release.
In her mind she has repeated many times the stories she's wanted to tell him and when she imagines his lovely face grinning at the content of her words she too would smile to herself, knowing that in his incarceration he'd once in a while find relief in her words. He would never have to breathe alone anymore or stare at the same patch of sky without sharing it with anyone or even whisper words in the wind while everyone else has sunk to the bottom of their dreams, glad to be at least alive.
She has promised him in those letters that he would never have to spend a single moment by himself from then.
But the letters stay untouched and the words remain unread. From thousands of miles away he saunters up and down his cell as his steps hammer down the cold concrete whose every space has kissed his soles so many times over. His hair has grown longer than the years he's spent in confinement, his eyes darkened, seeming to have lost their powers to reflect. Lines too have begun stretching out like peripheral veins on his face, counted in ages but never denying a weary fight he no longer wants to continue. His lips have been pursed far too long to ever know which words to produce.
He doesn't wait for her letters. He knows not that she's written them. He only waits for the beacon of his doom, the price he has to pay. When the time comes to breathe his last, he would no longer wave to the audience or give them the charming smirk he's won them over with; instead, he would raise his eyes from the ground and try to recall the basic rules of atonement and forgiveness, salvation and peace, life and death. The thread would snap to put an end to two decades of confinement. Even then, everything that has tied him to the world would slowly uncoil itself to crawl away slyly and choke yet another living thing. If he believes in the soul, that, too, would be his release.
posted by Ria D. at
6:38 AM
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