Untitled, Unfinished

His white shirt was wrinkled and untucked, his tie loose around his neck. He had pushed his sleeves up around his elbows, revealing the subtly defined muscle of his forearm. Beneath his thin button down the ridges and planes of muscle could be seen along his back and shoulders. A strong frame, to carry a heavy burden.
A lock of blonde hair fell across his forehead and covered part of one eye- the consequence of repeatedly running his hand through his hair.

With his elbows touching his knees he sat, dejected, bent over on himself. It was cold outside now, nearly dusk, and the hard wooden bench on which he sat could offer him no warmth. But if the chill in the air bothered him, he made no indication. He just sat, unmoving. A perfect impression of a carved statue, beautiful and lifeless. The trees around him rustled their dry, golden leaves in the gentle breeze. All around him the earth was begining to lose its green, and was instead being replaced with dark reds, bold yellows, and rusty oranges. The clouds hung low in the darkening sky, with the strong rays of the sun surrendering slowly to the west.

The sound of my footsteps brought his face up suddenly to meet mine. Lines of tension creased his forehead and the darkened sockets of his face house two watery graves of green-brown. His eyes were like staring into the darkest depths of despair. Upon seeing me, a single line of moisture traced down one cheek of his unmoving face.

I gingerly sat down next to him, still staring into his face. No words could form in form in my mind, not that the lump in my throat would let them past anyway. Instead, I reached up with one hand, and gently brushed away the still-remaining tear with the back of my fingers. Something in him gave way, I saw it in his mouth. The hard, firm line of his lips, tightly shut before, cracked open just enough to reveal the tremble in his bottom lip. Before I could pull my hand back into lap he caught it with his own, holding it in place for a moment. With fingers like ice he pulled my hand and arm around his neck, while simultaneously leaning closer to me.

And then everything was a blur, rushing by in fastfoward.

His mouth was crushing to mine, with nothing short of fury. He wrapped his arms around me, drawing me into him even as I felt myself already pressing into his chest. My hands tangled in his hair, and locked around him, refusing to let go.

And then all the sudden he still. He face pushed back from mine, unreadable. The change was so abrupt that for a second I thought I had imagined the whole thing.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered, his voice strained. Still his hands remained in place.

"I didn't mean to overstep, I-" he started, but I didn't let him finish. Hadn't he apologized enough already? There was nothing here to weight his shoulders, no regret to darken his face. Even after everything, even now, he worried about being wrong in his emotions. About stepping over the lines he continued to break, even as he sought to avoid them.

I touched my lips back to his, silencing him and removing his lingering doubt. He resisted for half a second, and then he allowed the heat of the kiss to thaw out the ice of his worries. I had begun to wonder how anyone could fail to see the good in him; how they could miss his truest self, struggling daily to shine the haze of his past. But his intensity soon burned those thoughts away, and I was beyond the calm and rash state that allowed thought.

What tomorrow would bring, neither of us then knew. I knew his fight was far from over, in many ways it had just begun, but I did know one thing. I knew that when the demons came for him again, when the ghosts poured out of his closet once more, that he would not have to face them alone.

Conversations at the Corner of First

There he was. Plain jeans, a white button down. A little scruff on his jaw line, bags under his eyes.

He sure didn't look like a Savior.

Leaning against the street sign marking the corner of First and Amistad, hands in his pockets, face to the sky, he stood. Just waiting.

I wasn't sure what to say as I approached, but at the slight sound of my footsteps he looked over at me.

"It's been so long since I've seen you, my friend, " he said, eyes crinkling into a thousand-year-old smile.

"Yeah, you haven't been around much," I replied.

"I try not to impose on the lives of others. I never left you though." He gestured with his hands to the space around him, "You know where to find me, and I've been waiting for you for so long. I was beginning to wonder if you would ever return."

His eyes just stayed focused on mine. It was disconcerting. I shifted the bag in my hands awkwardly.

"Did you have something you wanted to ask me?" He smiled again.

"I want to know what you want. From me. From all of us. I came here to ask you what you want from me. And to tell you that I don't want to play this game anymore. I just want you to spell it out." I hadn't planned to say it like that, to just blurt it out. But it seemed odd to bother with small talk around Him.

The wind blew a piece of his shaggy hair and pulled at his loose shirt while he stood there, just looking at me.

Finally he spoke."I want to be your friend. You don't have to do anything, if you don't want to. You just have to let me be your friend, nothing else. You don't even have to do that if you don't want to."

"They call you a King, a Master. A master doesn't have friends, he has servants."

He sighed, looking tired."They do call me that, don't they? I suppose they have a hard time understanding me for what I am. But do you see a crown on my head? Do you see a whip in my hand?"

I shook my head.

"It's because I don't want those things. I give love, and it's hard for you to understand that I don't require anything in return. It would be nice if you loved me back, it would give me a joy like you can't comprehend, but it's not a requirement."

"They say you want worship, devotion, obedience." I spit out the last word with distain.

"They are wrong."

I must have looked confused, because he explained further.

“Some want to make me fit their vision of what a savior should be, what a god should be. They put me on a throne, ignore my love and create in its place cruelty and jealousy. But they're wrong. Their intentions may be pure, perhaps, but they've taken my words and twisted them. They've made me something they can understand. They don't understand love

"If you want love, then why did you create a world so full of hate and despair?"

"I valued your freedom above all else. I would not have you be puppets at my hand. I gave you life, and a free will, and the freedom to do what you chose. Sometimes you choose to spread hurt and anger. You chose violence at times. Remember, I said I don't like to impose. I'm not a super hero waiting to save the day. I can't give you your freedom and then take it away to save you from yourselves. You are free to succeed and free to fail. Love loses its meaning when it’s conveyed through the bars of a cage."

"What if I don't buy it? What if I don't believe it?"

"What is there to buy? Nothing here is for sale. It's free."

He smiled.

"Your disbelief in me does not sway my belief in you. So you could do nothing, believe nothing, and it wouldn't change a thing."

"Then what's the point? If I could just carry along with my life like I never met you and still get the prize, then what's the point?"

He ran his hand across his jaw, like he was trying to come up with just the right words.

"Have you ever loved someone

Yes."

"If they had told you that they did not love you, if they rejected you, would that change how you felt about them? Would that weaken your love for them at all?"

I thought about it for a moment.


“Maybe. If they don’t want me then what’s the point it hanging around? Can’t force someone to accept you if they don’t want it.”

“I asked would you still love them. Not what you would to about it. If you truly loved them, could anything they do erase that love?

"No. It's not something you can make go away."

“That person that you love, if they fell down, would you help them up?”

“Of course. I’d do anything for them.”

His eyes wrinkled into a smile.

"Exactly.”

We stood in silence for a few moments. Him with his eyes shut, breeze on his face, me staring out at nothing.

He spoke first."That bag looks heavy; would you like me to carry if for you?"

“Why? I can get it; it’s not a big deal.”

“I can see the blisters on your shoulders from here.”

I hadn't noticed it before, but the bag was starting to dig into my shoulders. It was actually quite painful. I’d been carrying it for a while.

He spoke again, “I’ll carry it for you, just hand it to me. I’ll carry it wherever you want to go. You’re free to take it back at any point.”

"Yeah ok, here. You can take it if you really want to.”

"I would like nothing more."