Why is it that I can never do things the second time right? Why do I worry about public opinion? Who's eyes will be reading these words? Will they fit? Will they like them? Prying, prying. Like a crack in the dark.

And if you look closely, you will see me in the middle of a sandstone stadium. The eye is continually on me now, and I stand stooped in a circle of dead. Sweat drips from my body only to be almost immediately evaporated by the searing earth. And sand drips from my sword, as I raise it. It must be used for another kill. So be it. The society has made it a command.

But when does that point come? You know the one. Where I die. Where it all falls away. Falls away like wet dirt over relics. Softly. Softly.

I don't wish to end all this. In fact I'm finding it difficult do express this feeling.

I am not Hamlet, though I try to be. While I lay in the dark wondering about slings and arrows. This pety little life, and yet I did end it once. Now I am back in the murk.

What am I talking about here? The reader will ask, perplexed. And I don't know. It could be enlightenment, or the search. But I'm not sure. Perhaps I'm just siphoning the crap in my mind off into yours.

This is for sure though. That warrior in the stadium, its not really me. I'm sitting here in a library surrounded by children, and even the old ones (you know what I mean) can't touch me. Sunlight from a blue sky is shinning in the window, and I would like to envision myself as the weathered warrior standing there with but one decision. Kill or be killed.

You see, I am a weathered warrior, just not in that sense.

But I can see me now. In the coluseum. (and this all came from a song by the way) The sword slowly spinning in slow motion as it drops from my hand. All the armor and the tactics. Endless tactics. They all fall away. God.

Fall away.

And I'm left with it. That feeling. That I've tried it all. Wanted it all. Even earned it all. And it is still not enough. The most protective beautiful gold armour. It falls away. It is just not enough.

This is the point in which the girl under the ocean wakes up and strives for air. And this is the point in which the warrior slowly drops to her knees. Who knows what happens next. Maybe she'll die. I couldn't tell you. After all, its really not my story. It never was to begin with.

But what happens with this vision, the one that�s haunting me. An airplane full of me. Flying back to the United States in a warm summer. Me walking in, through glass, there is my family. My life. My independence. Everything I was and can never be again. And it is merged with the pictures of that girl. Me. Finally stepping out of the ocean. Finally done.

Oh goddess let it be done.

What prayer can I send out to make time fly. What lessons, the hard ones, lie between me and my island? Between me and my shore. My shore.

My heart is beating the seconds down. The swords are falling from my hands, and my eyes, because I have them, are dripping with water as the sea desperately hopes to suck me down. This has become my life. But only for the moment.

Because now I realize that no matter where I am it can fall away. Even in the middle of a blood soaked stadium. I hold no more weapons, and no armour protects me.

Where did it go? Finally no more pain. And peace, endless peace.

So I can die, just watch me.

I don't live in this world anymore. My eyes see the difference.

The stadium? Gone. I see a wheat field in full harvest. I see wings.

You see. Its just not enough. All of this. It never was.

So just fall away. Oh goddess, oh my soul.

Fall away, just let it all fall away.