When people hear the word warrior most think of swords, army men on horseback, battles to the death.

My definition is only a little bit different.

To me, a warrior is someone

who gets up every morning despite the weight in the bottom of their bodies begging them not to move.

Warriors are people who can vomit in the middle of the night and still eat in the morning like they haven't lost their appetite.

People who slice their skin with small swords like box cutters and kitchen knives and shower razors.

They are the people who live through and sometimes die from their internal battles.

Meredith Leigh is a warrior.

Present tense.

She always colored our worlds with poetry like violet paint,

with soft voice she pressed the color of blue crayon onto our stained canvases.

Pushed sun yellow into us when she held us tight, squishing all of our broken pieces back together.

Have you ever watched a meteor shower? Stood in awe at the flashes of sudden light dancing across the dark sky that silhouettes down onto us, like a silk dress.

Have you looked at the wonder of that and thought there is no way we are real?

That this, is real?

Thought that we must just be a dream inside of a golden molecule?

That there is no way there is such gorgeous, breathtaking things while there are also things that make our hearts

BANG BANG BANG

break against the cages of our chests.

Things that are so bad our minds store them in the file cabinet

"forget, forget, forget."

I have.

And I am a warrior.

I wake up in the morning and there is a moment of absolute childish joy. There are no memories.

No fears.

No weights pressing me down saying,

"stay, stay, stay."

And I put on my armor.

A smile, clean clothes if I can manage.

And I fight.

Endless battles through the day as my serotonin levels play jump rope and my chemical imbalance asks me to walk the tight rope.

I am only human. I can only do so much.

Meredith Leigh, despite her roaring strength, was also human.

A being that gets exhausted, who sometimes has to put the armor down.

Who has to go to sleep.

A part of being human is having to someday give up the flesh you call home.

And I am human.

I scream into my palms in the woods saying,

"why why why."

As I search under every single leaf for the answer to why even warriors,

who are all so very human,

have to lose their battles sometimes.