Lost Love Letters

My Dearest Clara,

The night sky above this camp is black with smoke, though the stars burn somewhere beyond it. I look upward until my neck aches, searching for a glimmer of home, of you.

We march tomorrow. The officers speak in whispers, but I have learned to read the fear behind their eyes. Something grave awaits us at dawn.

The men laugh around the fire, though it is the laughter of men who know their hours are numbered. I do not laugh. I write. I write to you, because your voice in my memory is the only thing that keeps me tethered to this world.

I keep your ribbon pressed against my chest as if it were armor. It has stopped more tears than any shield could ever stop bullets.

Clara… there is something I must tell you. It has weighed on me for months...