A wall, and beyond

You see the brown wall, and the man leaning on it. It is but an illusion, for the real wall is within him, and he is holding on to it with all his might, for dear life. None of us are born with an invisible wall in our minds, to protect us and keep out the ones it deem dangerous to our inner peace, and along with it some loved ones, of course. We are born wild and free, we laugh with our heart and cry from our souls.

But after a while, somebody comes along and changes your world. The beautiful wind of change kisses the sails of your ship, with unsaid promises of a distant shore, where love and warmth awaits you. You play along with the wind, opening yourself up, believing everything the wind whispers, and sometimes hearing words that the wind may not have spoken at all.

In your fool’s world, you are but a happy man, for the fool does not know what the future holds, and takes all delight in the moment. The fool is not one to notice the subtle shifts in wind, until the salty air is as still as a dead man’s eye, and he is stranded, a lonely man in unfamiliar waters, with his self sinking slowly into an ocean of despair, into a sepulchre of solitude.

And then He wakes up to the real world, thanks to some kind creatures. He is no longer the foolish soul that once roamed the seas. He is a wise man now, wise with the knowledge of perils and traps the capricious waters of life have to offer.

But everything comes at a price, and so does wisdom.

Now he is rich with the knowledge that love shall hurt, yet it is wealth that he would have been better off without. For this wisdom, this new light shall force him to lay in place, brick by brick, a wall of separation, a wall of distance. Some twisted mind may call it a monument, to lost love.

No more shall he open up, to seductive winds that pass by, to the occasional wayfarer who might otherwise have stayed a moment, a night or a season.

Yet he does not lose hope.

He dreams that someday, an angel would come; daring to soar above the heights of separation he has made for himself, forgetting the fact that there are no angels or demons in this world, only humans with their infinite myriad of imperfections, desires and complicated emotions ranging from guilt through hatred to love.

He dreams that a person strong enough to break open these walls, brave enough to explore what lies within is on her way; forgetting the simple fact that explorers of the world need not the dirty, dark corridors of his soul.

Yet some miracles have happened. Some have come, who had cared enough to scrape away a little of the moss on the wall. Some have persevered, enough to make a crack in the wall, an infinitesimal window of light for the man within. Yet before he could tell them how desperately he needed them all, before he could reach a hand to them, they had left in disappointment.

It was never truly a solitary confinement, within. There were a trusted few, the few in whom you could confide your deepest secrets that you would know they will not use it against you. But even these kindred souls cannot stay forever, and they are flying away, one by one. I rejoice in the fact that they leave out of necessity, not out of choice. Yet I weep, for I know that they are the ones who always truly cared. In my wait for angelic winds and brave explorers, I had forgotten to show these rare foul weather mates how much they meant to this prisoner of his own mind.

Now the shackles that hold him are rusty and falling off. He prepares now for a new voyage. He does not know what the journey holds for him, or how this new travel would change him. Yet he cannot run away and he will not. But he knows that when he returns, only one thing shall remain eternally constant- The wall.