We are the warriors for the light

   We are the warriors for the light. Our eyes see through the darkness and we catch the movement in the shadows. We see the faint shimmer coming off the figures huddling in the corners retreating, swallowing themselves whole. We see the light pushing through the cracks, oozing through the fissures. We feel the pulsation of the light like the beat of our own heart and it calls to us with every breath. Some of us question why we have to wake up every morning and suit up in our armor of ferocity and scream our battle cries. Some of us stopped questioning lifetimes ago. Some of us are fresh and new- young recruits ready to run out onto the battlefield not yet scarred from lifetimes of fighting. Some of us are old war dogs so tired, our arms silver with thousands of years of scars.

We are the warriors for the light. We feel the screams of children shaking our souls and we hold lifetimes of faint memories of children that we have birthed and loved and lost and found again deep in our hearts. We soldier up and fight for those little ones, for we hold all of the children who have ever been and will ever be inside of us and we promise to keep them safe. We feel the screams of our brothers and sisters tearing at us when they lose a little one and we pick them up and make them part of us too. We beg the light to make us as big as the universe so we can wrap our arms around them and stroke their hair, so they can remember that the darkness will never win no matter how strong it may seem.

We are the warriors for the light. Our bodies become tired and our souls become weary and sometimes we make ourselves forget. We look away when we see the light oozing through the cracks. We drink and dance and run and fuck and make and do and buy and try to forget who we really are….because who we really are can make us so tired. But no matter how hard we press our hands against our ears and how tightly we close our eyes, we know. We know that we were made to see the light in the places that seem to be made of blackness, to let ourselves be cracked open again and again to cut through the darkness. We know that we are here to be a mirror that flashes commandments of love into the abyss.

We are the warriors for the light. We look at the darkness all around us and we think about what causes our own darkness. We remember that when we sat in the dark we felt scared. We know that it’s easy to forget that there is any light in the world because darkness takes away our sight. We understand that like the fish that live the deepest underground caves that over time lose their ability to see, some of us do as well. We know that light is not about seeing, it is about being. Even in the darkest moments we close our eyes and reach out to our brothers and sisters to feel the warmth of the light as we hold out our hands to bring them back into the sun.

We are warriors for the light. We know that we can never rest. We understand that the darkness is strong- and that it is so easy to slide into fear. We know that if we give in for even a moment, the fear and anger will pull us under. In those moments when it is so tempting to close our eyes and let the velvety darkness wrap us up and smother us, so tempting to believe the honeyed words that it whispers into our ears “hate,difference,intolerance,disgust,power..” we crack ourselves open even wider and let the brilliance blind us,envelop us, grow larger, brighter, hotter than the sun. We join our light with others like us and shine it into places that has never seen anything but the dark.

We are the warriors for the light. We are made of faith. We are made of love. We are the universe. We are all of us…and we will never stop fighting.