He stumbled into my life
like he didn't know where he was
and finding no fault, asked few questions.
Child-like, all he wished for was a hand to hold
and wistfully, a way to wrest himself
from hell.

So shy, he kept to his own device.
I wondered why he sat there,
wanting, saying, asking
only
so little.
He simply wanted a friend,
so I said "I'll send you something granted,"
and gave him my hand.

Such a strong grip soon he had on me,
I scarcely could let go,
even when I wanted to, he'd
beg me "Never allow it."
Because I had no heart to let him be,
I stayed behind with him,
not by his fault,
but by my own.

Sadness was his way
and tears his daily
absolution.
I wanted to wipe them away,
to make him laugh.
Yet walls separated us,
Walls like mountian ridges covered with cold,
craggy limitless ice.
Boulders of hatred
bound him in.

He sat behind bars,
innocent of any crime
yet condemned
for who he was, naught else.
The reluctant criminal
of someone else's making, they
raked him
with guilt, suffocation, torture,
and rendered him
unceasing pain.

So much I felt his soul within me
that soon I wept for the way,
with stoic strength
he accepted this fate
of locked, bolted doors,
despair,
no life,
and darkened walls.

When he touched me, I felt his frozen fate,
as if caught in another world,
like a universe different from mine
where light did not pervade
nor laughter live.
On times when, terrified, I entered there,
I hardly breathed
and heaved sighs of anger,
as if crucified myself
upon the sight
of his undeserved chains.
They wrapped tight all 'round his neck,
his legs,
his hands,
his head,
his heart.

Death was his only Friend.

I longed to break this steel,
yes, shatter the bars
and kill this awful Friend. I wished to be the one
who kept him company
in his lonely
solitary soulless stark confinement.
Secretly, there were days I lived there in my heart,
with him,
not daring to reveal the terror caught within my soul.
But I could not help,
except by prayer,
nor penetrate the power of those
who kept him there.

So in the end, desperate myself, I conspired with destiny
to wreck the racks of iron and chains
that chilled and bound him so.
Destiny can can be a door
Blown open surely as a soldier shows his might
and shoves a solid weapon bright
into deepest darkness.

A grenade can blow this black-iron
seemingly impenetrable barrier so strong.
Such shock can come on
sudden, setting loose the solid steel's confining grip,
to save my precious prisoner's life
from blood and death.

My soldier's aid to give is only this:
love, honor, sacrifice, and stealth,
Faithfulness to a friend.
And yes,
my soft grenade is truth.