My Knight’s Surrender

By Lucy Connor

I stand on the hill. Independent, alone, free. The wind blows through my hair, the rains come and go. The sun burns and the cold bites at my fingers and face. Still I wait. I cannot move lest he will not find me. For years I have stood as a sentry at my post. Stoic, unfeeling, unchanging on the outside while on the inside, my heart cries for the love I have waited for.
I watch in silence as he battles his demons. I pray that he can navigate his fallen dreams and his broken heart. I know that if he can, he will finally come to me. I will myself to stay even when it is painful for me to watch.
Closer and closer he comes. I call his name to the wind, pleading with him to keep going. Over lifetimes and ages, we have loved and we are destined to continue that love throughout time. “I am here, come to me.”
The wind whispers in my ears….screams in my ears….”He is not yours…can you not hear her call? Can you not see the look in his eye?”

For a moment, he looks to me…then, he looks past me. Behind me she stands. Her voice sings on the swirling wind. She stands tall and strong, the picture of perfection in his eyes.
He looks to me again, pleading for me to make the pain go away. I am frozen in time, I cannot move, cannot breathe. The one I have prayed for, have waited for, have longed for, climbs the final hill and continues past the ledge I stand motionless upon. Their eyes meet and his world, full of pain, falls away.
I stand, stoic and strong as a statue while my insides dissolve into a mass of emptiness. For him, I have waited and dreamed. I believed that he was my forever…but in my dreams I heard her calling his name…and I knew.

And now, my broken heart hurts when I think of his gaze. On my head is burned the image of the moment he got on his knee and looked into her eyes. The walls that tumbled were just inches from me. My silent screams cry “NO”…but my love has gone. He has disappeared into his forever…and I am but a casualty that stood, momentarily, in the way.

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