The Holder
Imagine, if you will, memories of half a life,
Erased—not misplaced, but taken,
Stripped violently from the holder's grasp,
As though some unseen hand sought to leave nothing behind.
Not even a whisper, not even a shadow.
Layered on top of that theft, a decade of torment—
Not the loud, crashing torment of war,
But the quiet, insidious kind,
The kind that drips poison into the soul.
Verbal lashes that leave no visible scar,
Mental warfare that corrodes the edges of reality,
Emotional wounds that bleed long after they're inflicted,
And physical blows that remind the holder of his frailty.
The world becomes an unfamiliar wasteland.
Gone are the markers of safety,
The lights that once guided him—snuffed out.
In their place, fog stretches infinitely,
Blurring all distinction between what is real
And what is fabricated by his fractured mind.
For thirty years, the holder wanders.
Each step weighted, each breath labored.
There is no direction—
Only an endless expanse of nothingness,
Broken occasionally by the echo of a lost laugh,
Or the fleeting scent of something familiar.
And yet, these remnants bring no comfort—
Only the gnawing ache of recognition
Without the solace of understanding.
Then, one day, the holder awakens.
Not with the sudden clarity of a revelation,
But with the slow, agonizing pull of realization.
A map lies before him.
It is weathered and torn,
Its edges singed by some unseen fire,
Its surface marred by stains that refuse to fade.
It is incomplete—so many pieces missing,
So many paths leading nowhere.
But it is something.
And in this wasteland, something is everything.
For over two years, the holder toils.
He scours the wasteland for fragments of the map,
Fingers blistered from digging,
Eyes stinging from the dust of forgotten memories.
He pieces it together slowly,
Each fragment fitting awkwardly into place,
Each new discovery raising as many questions as it answers.
The map becomes a mosaic of scars,
Beautiful in its imperfection,
But maddening in its elusiveness.
At last, the map is whole again.
Or as whole as it will ever be.
The holder studies it,
Tracing each line with trembling fingers,
Desperate to make sense of it.
But the landscape it describes is still foreign,
The landmarks unrecognizable.
The holder is still lost,
Trapped within a prison not of his own design,
Haunted by the knowledge that the map is both his salvation
And his torment.
And yet, he does not give up.
He takes a step forward.
It is hesitant, faltering,
But it is a step.
Then another.
And another.
The wasteland begins to shift.
The fog thins,
Revealing hints of what lies beyond.
The holder’s steps grow steadier,
His path clearer.
He is no longer searching for what he lost.
Those pieces of himself are gone,
Buried beneath the sands of time.
Instead, he searches for what lies ahead—
For the things he will hold next.
And though the road is long,
And the shadows still linger,
The holder walks on.
Because the map, scarred as it is,
Is not just a guide to the wasteland.
It is a testament to survival.
And the holder—
Broken, battered, but unyielding—
Is the proof that even in the darkest of places,
There is a way forward.