In love and war “Rucksack”

How long?

How long have I been ruck-marching through this war?

My war.

This movement to daylight.

Walking through these minefields?

My minefields.

Saturated with the mines I've laid.

Crisscrossed with tangle foot and concertina wire.

Explosive charges tamped full of anger and bitterness.

Trip flares of sadness.

Bright with regret.

Almost to dim to illuminate her face on the other side of these mines that I tirelessly have sewn into the fabric of "me".

Into the landscape of "us".

I thought that by using them up it would loosen the load in my pack.

Loosen the weight in my head.

The weight on my heart.

But by laying them I unwittingly made myself the enemy.

When you wage war on yourself, everyone else becomes your enemy by proxy.

And instead of shedding the weight in my ruck, I added more.

I needed more mines.

More bullets.

Grenades.

More protection from the ever increasing ghosts of friends and foes creeping into my fields of fire.

Looking out across this minefield, my minefield, I could barely see her anymore.

Almost invisible across our battlefield of flesh, dotted here and there with bomb craters, scabs and scars of battles past.

Glassing the field I almost couldn't tell that it was her.

Standing there with a canteen in her hands.

Gazing at my defenses across the distance.

But I could see that she had no weapons.

No helmet.

No armor.

No gas mask.

She never had.

Standing across that vast space facing me.

Never wavering.

I looked down at my rifle.

My helmet.

My rucksack.

Then back at her.

Her hair gently blowing across her face in the breeze.

Still facing me.

Canteen in hand.

Defenseless.

Looking down at my hands I see how dirty they are.

Callused.

Bloodstained hands.

I glance up across the vastness and she still stands there.

Motionless.

Staring.

Reaching down almost without thinking, my fingers reach for the rifle and the feel of the metal against my fingers is almost vile.

A bad taste comes up in my mouth.

My hands continue their nimble dance across the rifle..

across the sandbags...

and find the rucksack.

I reach in and pull out the claymores and set them down in the dirt.

Reaching in again I feel the endless belts of linked ammunition inside and let them slide out onto the ground.

She still stands there.

Canteen in hand.

Feeling around inside once more I find the scattered grenades near the bottom and dump them out around my feet.

As if in a trance my hands and arms pull the pack by it's straps towards me.

Robotically they swing it up, around and then over my shoulders.

Slowly, wearily standing up, I begin walking towards her from my position.

My foot knocking my helmet aside and into my rifle as I begin to trudge past the sector stakes.

Stumble over the grenades.

She still stands there.

Still staring.

Canteen in hand.

Her eyes fixated on me as I walk towards her.

I meet her gaze and begin the long walk across this no-mans land with my head up, my back straight, my hands empty.

Never once looking down as I steadily close the space between us through the mines.

Past the dismembered limbs of trust.

Over discarded dressings of hope.

I can't hear anything but a steady drumming in my ears.

The echoes of guns of war?

Or the beating of my heart?

My rucksack feels so light now.

As if it wasn't there.

Empty.

A few steps away from her I stop and slowly remove the pack from my back.

Stretching out her arm she offers me a drink.

A drink from her canteen.

A canteen filled with tears.

Stooping over I loosen the straps and drop the rucksack.

Reaching inside I grasp the two almost forgotten remaining objects.

She is motionless.

Her eyes a blue/green reflection of the world all around us.

Reaching towards her I grasp the canteen and then place an object into the palm of each of her hands.

She looks down.

In one hand is a small tattered white flag.

In the other,

a compass.