משיח

To the most beautiful girl in the world,

I wish I could tell you I don’t love you. It might be easier that way. It would be easier that way. To not love you, would keep me from feeling as if I’m being gutted alive, I wouldn’t feel as if I’m ripping to shreds, it wouldn’t hurt like it’s hurting me right now. Not that it’s your fault. It's not your fault that you have the most beautiful smile I have ever seen, the way you toss your head back and squint your eyes as you laugh. It’s not your fault you have warm eyes that I want to melt into. It's not your fault that your a dreamer. That you believe in humanity, in the goodness of people. It's not your fault you want to save the world, save every child not loved enough. How could I blame you for loving me? For giving me reason to wake up in the morning, for giving me butterflies every time I look at you. I still keep expecting this to get old, but as comfortable as I feel with you, I still love you, I still choose you. And that why this is killing me.

To be miles and miles away from you, to hear the sounds of your pain and not to be able to hug you, to love you. I wish I could be there. Instead of trapped across an army zone and a battlefield.

I remember the first time I saw you. We were at a party, and across the room I saw a beautiful girl, and there are always beautiful girls, but this girl- she radiated. She was laughing her head thrown back, the most beautiful sound I have ever seen. I couldn’t help but watch you. I couldn’t help but want to know you, to talk to you. “Don’t even try, man” was the advice I got from one of my buddies. He laughed at my expression and asked me, “do you honestly think you're the first one to fall in love with that girl?” and as I watched you, I understood. I saw your kindness as I watched you talking to the wallflowers, as you laughed off the coke spilled on your dress. “It’s so fine! sometimes I feel like I have two left feet. You should see what I spilled on the guy last night. And he was wearing white.” I knew then, that I would be guy number 89 on your list of love struck fools, but I knew I needed to know you, to understand you. But maybe it was really the opposite, you were just the person to know me, to understand me. To see me.

I remember running through the tall grass outside the park by Main. I remember us running and running, barefoot. Me chasing you. I remember your scream “OW!” as you fell down. I remember the cut you got, and the look you gave me, as I was kneeling before you. I remember looking and thinking, one day, one day, I'm going to have a ring in my back packet as I do this.

I remember holding you tight as you cried and cried and asked me, and begged me, “Don’t Go.

please!

Don’t go!!” I remember the look in your eyes and the heaviness in my heart when you stood beside me despite it all.  I remember the feel of your trembling hands as you made me promise. “Tell me you'll come back to me, tell me you'll come back home.”

And every year I want to. Every year I keep waiting for my discharge forms. I wake up every single morning telling myself, today- today you’ll see her again. And every day I haven’t. Everyday I pick up another gun and run to a battlefield I don’t think I can win against. Everyday I try to keep my sanity, and I try to keep my belief that I’ll come home, that I’ll come back to you. Today, for a minute, I’ve forgotten what you look like, what you feel like as I hold you. And I hate it. I hate how i feel as if I’m losing you, and it's not the first time that I’ve forgotten. I wish it was the first time. No, i wish there never was a first time.  Some days, I forget. And even looking at our picture isn’t enough to remember. It is worn, and it is faded from war. I have it in the front left pocket of my uniform, within the black inked pages of my siddur. ״יהי רחמן״

Today I lace up my boots as I do every other day, I close my eyes and wrap black lines around my forearm. I cry as i scream שמע ישראל ה׳ אלוקינו ה אחד .

I remember all those things I was taught in primary school. I remember those children saved by these lines, remembering in their innermost parts of themselves that they were יהודי , because the core of a Jew is his שמע. I remember that saying the שמע just one time is worth all the life in this world. And I cry as I say, “Please my father, don't take me away. Please, my father bring me back home.” And then I pocket my siddur with the little hope between the pages. אני מאמין באמונה שלמה בביאת המשיח

And then I go out to war.