Can you miss someone who was never really there? What do you call it when you realise others have something that you are just somehow missing? There is an empty space, but no one to fill it. There are questions, but no one to answer them. There are needs, and no one to fill them. Something is missing you realise. Someone is missing. It doesn’t matter you tell yourself. There are more than enough people in my life... There are so many people who love me you think. But every person has their own rightful place. They love you, in the way they are supposed to , and that love is not the same as the kind that you are missing. There is a hand on your shoulder, the one that gets you through almost everything. But there’s still something missing, the hand that’s on your shoulder in those very rare cases to get you through more than almost everything. To get you through those handful of times and places, that would be almost nothing, if he was just there to put a hand on your shoulder.

There are so many in my family who complain about being pushed away. Who claim to have suffered profound abuse and felt exceptionally unwelcome and unloved. They are delusional, every one of them, and they are obviously living their lives choosing to look at things through a one way mirror. That won’t work in our family, no. Not in ours. A two way mirror is the only you will see the truth,and realise why you can’t do what is right, and why it is so easy to walk away from the only thing that truly matters in life apart from God. What matters is family. It’s not that I don’t believe them, because then I wouldn’t be a part of this family after all. I do believe them. Which is exactly why I blame them, and hold them fully accountable for their actions. We come from a long line of people who above all, survived despite being placed under impossible circumstances. People who were supposed to break, but didn’t. People who are supposed to be bitter, but aren’t. People who should be misshapen, deformed and out of their minds, but appear completely untouched by the hand fate has dealt them. They learned long ago that there is no time to dwell on things past, and no way to go on if you look too closely at the cruelty of what is true. The truth is frightening beyond belief, and the past is a dark void that will suck you in and extinguish the flames of your life leaving nothing but darkness, emptiness, and a breathtaking loneliness. These people are hard. They come from people who are hard, and tough. And they give birth to people who are indestructible. You are raised to be hard, and tough, but you are also raised to be loved more truly than any singular other emotion you may ever have felt. People who see you for what you are, exactly as what you are, and choose to love you, not in spite of it all, but because of it all, because it is all you, and you are all of it, and you are all a part of everyone of the people who truly love you. Their love is hard, their path is hard, and they are hard. And so are you. You are one of them. You can stand with all of them, if you choose to, because all that is in them, is also in you. And this is why I blame them for their failure in being part of the family. No one is going to be weak, so that you can feel strong. That’s not the way we role around here. And no one is going to accept that you are weak, just because you are too scared of being like them. No one will move heaven and earth for you, but they will. Even when you are angry at one another, family is always family. You choose who is worthwhile enough to give you grief, and who is not, as long as you do it together. You want the right to be weak, and to receive all the time without ever giving, and this is why you look into the one way mirror, so that you don’t see yourself staring back at you when you look at their image. All that they are, and will ever be, is in you. It is in you too. It is inescapable, and you hate them for seeing you as you are, when you try your best to escape from your own skin and take the form of something less. Something less than hard. Something less than indestructible. Something less than you. The real you. The you that can only be seen by someone who comes from the same stock, and sees straight through to your core. You see the gods of the arena looking at you, and a fear sinks in. A fear that takes hold of your very soul. For you don’t want to enter the arena. You know that you will be skillfull. You know that you will be victorious.And the crowds will cheer your name in unison and children will wish to be you when they grow up. But you are afraid. You knw not even what exactly you are afraid of, only that it is a feeling you cannot shake, and that consumes you the way a fire does a wisp of hay. And this is why I blame you. For lack of courage you pass the privilege of standing in the arena on to those too young to know what dueling is. Their legs too short too get them very far. Their arms too small to lift a single weapon, let alone weild it. Their tiny bodies swimming in the folds of the robes and armour meant to protect a fully grown warrior from the enemies advances in the throes of battle. And I weep further still for you have done this great injustice without taking care to remember that whis=ch is of utmost importance. That though they be children still, babes of the times, they are yet hard, and tough. As they were sired by those who were hard, and tough, and they were raised albeit a very short while, to be hard and tough. And when other babes would have fallen, slain and bloodied on the rose gold sands of the arena, these would rise no matter what, and emerge even harder still for want of the childhood so unjustly bereft of them by those who should have known better. And now wish to say what, when you look at these magnificent warriors. Beautiful young man and women, always smiling, always playing to the crowd, even as their “deathbringers” steal the life from those who would so dearly have clung to it. They are now gods of the arena. Children no more. Afraid no more. And they have taken the opportunity you have so callously passed on to them before their time, thus giving them double the death sentence, half the time and but a tenth of the strength necessary to get through such a trial. Oh and what a trial it was. How many times did we not think to give up? How many times did it not seem all for naught? How often did we cry that it was unfair? Until cries turned to silence. And Anger turned to silence, and grief and hope and despair turned to silence. For you see, it is best to attack the enemy in silence as he will not be expecting it. It is best to bear your wounds in silence, and save your strength for healing, and it is so much better to look upon your enemy in a knowing silence, than in noisome fear. Look upon your opponent, watch him carefully, and you will know when the time is right to strike, and strike true. When they should have run, being children, they knew not where else to go, and chose to remain. To stay with those too old, too weary, and too broken to fight with them, or even for them. But as these picasso’s of the gladiator art tended their wounds, they listened, these babes, they listened in their silence. And received all the wisdom, the secret techniques, and the countless blessings which should have been bestowed upon the gods of the arena, now absent. And know you know why I blame you, for running away. You see my strength and beauty, you see what you wish to see. Do you see the secret wounds? Do you see the hidden scars? D you still know who stands before you? Or do you guess at it all? For id=f that be the case, do not guess that I had become all that I should have been, because that would never have been enough. You made sure of that. You must know, with all truth and certainty, that I am all that I was forced to be, and perhaps a bit more, for that is what was required. That is still what is required. I outweigh you in every aspect. I do not think I am that good. Oh no. I learned long ago that thinking misguided things could very well lead you to your death, sooner than you could possibly imagine. I know it. Knowing is the only way to survive against all odds, and I, my darling, have done more than survive, I have thrived. And so have my fellow warriors. Gladiators who traipse the battlefield with ease, flair and grace. We are the new gods of the arena, and we have reason to smile at the corpses of our adversaries, for they would have jumped for joy had our positions been reversed. And I am sorry to admit that there is no way that you can trumps us. Not anymore. For the ones who would have passed their light on to you, have all passed away. And when they chose to pass their light on to those who were worthy. Only we were present, and only we met the grade, and thus we have received their power, albeit prematurely, for we are indeed still very young in form, though time and circumstance has made us wise far beyond our years. It is ours, and we cannot be robbed of it for it is etched into our very DNA, and enforced by the gravity of memory, and the unseen marks left by the lessons that our bodies could never ever deem to forget.