four walls beyond; echo

If there is a compass buried somewhere in my chest, its northern pull must be askew.

Perhaps there is simply too much flesh and bone surrounding it, or perhaps somewhere along the way it simply lost the will to keep advocating for a cause no one could hear.

When people die in a similar way, we call them martyrs and saints. I would like to think of my heart as a saint in the same, but I cannot pin the point for which it had passed away. After all, for what could I have spent eighteen years locked away believing in so strongly that I would imagine others needed to feel the same way?

If this was the answer to all of my prayers, I was not aware that I had bowed my head in worship.

I have never believed in karma or good deeds or rebirth or divine intervention and today is not the day I plan on shaking my moral foundations. No, I believe the world has been laid out since the first day it appeared in existence whenever and however that may have occurred. Determinism is a loaded gun and every action and choice we make is simply the trigger another time pulled.

I wonder if there is someone, somewhere counting the bullet holes that we all leave behind.

Maybe for this reason our caskets should be buried hollow, or better yet, incinerated. A grave is simply another means by which one can cause pain to the living even in their own death. I have never understood the paradox of tragedy until I experienced it for myself. My father and I had stood at the outskirts of a graveyard and watched a funeral procession march onward to a war they were all willing to fight. I remember asking him that if they were so badly hurt by losing who they loved, why did they even bother to come. After all, would it not hurt less to stitch up your wounds in the comfort of your own home or in the solace of silence?

(“My boy, as humans we crave that which hurts.”)

I had not asked him why; what importance did the cause have when the effect was still laying waste to us all? However, I had asked him if he had committed any act along these lines, and he had softly smiled as the last stragglers of the procession faded from view, “Of course I have. We all take courses of action that we know will cause us torment in the end.”

I wonder what intentional harm I have caused myself without realizing the destruction that was being done.

But is this not how all good intentions begin? Do not even the vilest human beings believe that their cause is one worth fighting for? They craved something more than what an average walk of life was to provide and felt responsible for taking the blame of a society gone awry.

Oh, how mortals believe they can play the role of a god without suffering the consequences as well.

To live with civilization’s failure as a personal burden must be the divine fabrication of hell. I suppose in that respect there really is no heaven— besides, has the world not been burning since the beginning of its existence?

I am no god; I have never understood what it means to see a cause advocated for crumble from the pedestal on which I had placed it and rain down its misery on my mind. I do not know what it means to continue taking blame where it is not due.

Then again, what blame has ever been optional to take claim of as my own?

My father was not tied down to his morals or my mother or anything that eclipsed the space in between. He hid behind the guise of being unapologetic; of living a life absent of regret that could exist in time for longer than five seconds. He ingrained in me a habit of never learning how to pronounce the word “sorry,” so it could not build a home on the lands of my tongue.

“I don’t think so.”

I lose thoughtful ground attempting to remember what I had inquired.

In the midst of my thought her voice breaks the trail again, “Who are you? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before around here.”

I stare blankly, unable to answer at first, for so many of the words she has strung together are simply subjective. How was I to define myself besides a name— who else am I truly when it seems that every other aspect of myself is constantly shifting with circumstance? Tied off neatly with the word here I wonder if she means this spot, because I too wonder if I have ever placed my feet upon this exact ground at a prior time as well. If she was referring to a generalized definition of a place others called home synonymous with District Eight, I suppose we had simply been unable to bring our wires to cross with meaning.

My father had told me that he had heard my name on the northern wind, but I suppose the breeze had died down since that day in time, “Zackariah.” Subjectively myself and no one else I extend a hand in her direction as I ponder the nature of where I was and where I had been.

“I have been in Eight my entire life, but I do not believe I have ever stood on this exact spot.”

I pause, ponder the immediate surroundings and turn my gaze back to meet her own line of sight, “I do not know what has brought me here today, and perhaps I am overstepping in asking, but do you?”