Like Feathers in the Wind.

My heart goes out to the soldiers.

The soldiers who live within me, my soldiers.

The soldiers who fight to be heard, seen, known.

When I think of them, I think of sacred breath, sacred being.

Their collective stomp gives way to stillness and awe as their march vibrates the earth, awakening all insects and root systems underground.

Left foot, right foot.

Perfectly, flawlessly in sync.

The heels of their boots split the soil like the first crack in a block of ice.

The crease between their eyebrows arch down, forming two sides of a triangle.

Their movement is sharp.

Their faces, determined.

My soldiers fight to be known, to be visible.

And their opponents try and take them down the second they emerge.

Yet, my soldiers are my sanity.

Their opponents move out of instinct.

They fall like bricks from a ten-foot window.

Seeking to destroy, to block, to kill.

In a world that tries to shun their existence, my soldiers stand firm.

Giving voice to their being and texture to their surface.

Here in this battlefield we call life, our emotions are never enough. They are weak distractions that no one has time for. They are feathers floating in the wind, meant to be captured and never seen again, meant to be silenced, rejected, ignored. They never make sense, they never explain anything, opponents argue. They are a waste of breath, a waste of a true soldier.

Yet my soldiers are fighting for me, always emerging at the perfect moment.

They are my feathers in the wind.

My heart goes out to the soldiers.

For as the bricks fall, they refuse to shatter.