There are casualties in war. Those who dont make it back to a place of sound hopes and dreams. Some take on their demons alone. They are deceived into fearlessness and trampled by the hooves of their oppressor. Besides intervention there is little justice for the thousands-upon-thousands hacked to pieces all around us. How dare we try to take life to the next level. Instead of merely protecting ourselves or scrounging up our next meal we have the audacity to hope for something morea witness for our lives who will survive alongside us.

I once held a belief that life made sense that working toward a dream would birth substance. Nothing else mattered. I soon discovered that success is as long-lasting as any of lifes novelties. Weve all been happy with new things only to be disappointed later. Dolls and soldiers our parents toiled to give us found their way to pedestals then to the back of closets. Id always dreamed of marrying a woman I loved and watching my children grow. I wonder if our lives should be filled with the pursuit of such dreams those magical hopes interwoven into our story. Our stories are decorative shells for the crabs we really are both protecting and exposing us to the manic outside.

I wept for relationships not possible due to denial and dreams locked in the back of peoples minds all of the bits of life that lay dormant until the babblings of televisions and nursing homes sweep them away. It makes me wonder how many of the dreams we had originally have already been forgotten.