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.