Static Pages, Moving Meaning

How much more can we take of this?

Why do we dare to hope for the best yet expect the worst without fail?

Perhaps the reason is that every new day that encroaches brings another devastating breakdown that unravels the human mind into thinking that, somehow, if by some miracle, this war will end one day and be nothing more than a specter.

I, for one, refuse to hope any longer than I have.

I refuse to do anything but take action in this forsaken place of mind.

I take action in the name of those who no longer have the power to.

Comrades and loved ones have fallen time and time again to this plague of beasts tightening their reins on the already suffocation human condition, dictating what we can and cannot do, can and cannot believe in, and can and cannot repair.

The civilians are programmed to hope and dream and wish for better days ahead. The regiment is programmed to do whatever they can to accomplish just that for the sake of those who lack the ability.

I, on the other hand, am subjected to pretending I am one of those that share the dream of the people. The ones who have hope for the limbic system.

“It is what it is” loses its ring when results aren’t being produced.

The grueling battle within the hypothalamus had officially come to a ceasefire with a tragic number of casualties, with the cortex becoming nothing more ceremonious than collateral damage.

Innocents’ worlds and homes were commandeered and overthrown in the amygdala, and it pains me to recall just how desensitized I’ve become to it all.

One thing I always vowed to do was never cease fire.

The problem with that is that choice was ripped from me by those I grew to respect out of fear upon joining the limbic regiment.

Generation after generation of cadets, veterans, and citizens have placed their trust in us to deliver just one sliver of hope back to the people. They’ve placed their trust in me to bring us all home to the hippocampus where we’ll plant our prosperous roots for eternity.

It is my duty to find a reason to fight another day.

After witnessing all odds against you, you silently begin to wonder not if the fighting is worth it but if the reason you’re trying is. I have yet to find said reason.

I fight so that one day I will no longer have to fight anymore. Survive anymore. I fight so that individuals that put their trust in me can return home to their families without being covered in red blood cells.

I fight because there isn’t another purpose out there for me to have such a privileged option.

How am I supposed to believe this snot-nosed, overgrown kid sitting in the mirror is the answer to all of our problems?

Better yet, how does one look another in the eyes and convince them of that fact, and to hope, when they can’t be sure of it themselves?

The main issue is that she, at the very least, produced a result: a single spark of progressive healing and enlightenment upon frontal lobe development. An opportunity that the limbic regiment had countless opportunities to accomplish, and squandered, until recently, with her at the frontlines.

In just one potentially catastrophic event, she ignited that once-forgotten flame of hope within these cadets.

And dare I say, I am intrigued.

This woman in the mirror, you see, isn’t much of a child anymore at all.

She may be the only other soul who had the choice to hope ripped from her, like myself, her counterpart.

But along with the curse comes the ignorant blessing of never worrying about which day will be her last. For that, she follows me, wordlessly. And for that, I envy her.

With her ability of result and resilience, this woman may truly be the saving grace the limbic system longed for in their wildest dreams, working for the people and functioning in society the way she was destined to.

But for me, I am becoming my own.