An Ally for Allie

The birds are beginning to sing outside my window. It is their new morning; it is still my patient wait for sleep to finally come.

But there is no room for sleep on this night. Not with what the wind is blowing through my hair. Not with what the tide is washing up onto my feet. Not in this present lifetime.

Tracy Chapman whispers across the hum of of my computer. I can hear my cat sigh deeply in his sleep.
With all the world asleep and dawn so full of hope, I found the bright light of reality flash across my path like a passing car on a moonless night. I am momentarily blinded and find myself in denial of the words on my screen.

"I wanted to tell you to not come back... because it isn't safe"

He speaks of the only place I've called home in more years than I can begin to remember.The place I planted my roots.The place I allowed my heart to grow.The place I bared my soul for God and Man to see. The place I ran from when the world turned black and nothing was safe anymore.
The place I've been packing my bags to hesitantly revisit. The place I couldn't live without... until his words appeared.

It's funny... We can cling so tightly to a hope, a dream, a prayer we think will save us and some are even willing to follow it to their death. But he said he was an ally -- my ally. And for whatever reason known only to God, he felt compelled to let me know that at 4 in the morning when the sun is stretching from lazy slumber and rolling over for "just five more minutes..." I am not alone. I am safe. Someone else is looking out for me. Nothing in this world is guaranteed. Not even Allies. But those... those are worth dying for, even unto yourself.

There will be no sleep tonight. But for the first time in a long while, it will be safe.