Spilled Ink (Currently undergoing updates.)

kabamityboom:

I was young and small and vulnerable,

and I knew not of love.

A fiery, smoldering passion I had,

and respect only for the god above.

 

I was free, and innocent,

immune to the deathly disease

of war, violence, and the cries

of the Revolutionaries.

 

Sixteen years was a delicate age.

I was a floundering, fragile little girl;

attending balls, acting as a lady,

and altogether ignorant of the vast, hazardous world.

 

I was but a girl.

I knew not of powerful emotion,

churning through the mind and heart

and engulfing my senses like some rushing tide of the ocean.

 

The faraway Redcoats meant nothing to me.

I had my trinkets, my jewelry, and my beautiful gowns.

And every night, and every day, I dreamed

of meeting some lad from the neighboring towns.

 

Oh, I knew not of love.

I fancied I did, I imagined I knew;

for what else must a girl think of?

A girl must marry well, and marry soon.

 

 It was the year 1773.

 I had just met him. Jonathan Stewart Allerton.

Fan in hand, cheeks rosy with embarrassment,

I hid from curious eyes behind the window curtains…

 

He asked my name, and I blushed;

stammering a reply, I asked the same.

Jonathan Stewart Allerton.

I will never forget such a name.

 

He was a proud Revolutionary,

he announced, head held high, his voice strong and deep.

Something about his stance made my heart pound in my chest

and a new feeling arose inside of me.

 

It was a strange sensation, the sheer magnitude of this feeling

striking, unbearable, and reminiscent of an adrenaline rush.

We talked and danced amidst feasting and music;

never once did I question the power of touch.

 

His rebel status only heightened my feelings

as I pondered how daring, how graceful, how chivalrous, how kind…

Simple words and small gestures were all that was needed

to forever burn the image of his smiling eyes into the back of my mind.

 

As we left that night, it was as if I had been consumed

by a hunger that burned like an intoxicating fire.

I had never imagined anyone like him,

had never been caught in a situation so helpless and dire.

 

He professed he wanted to meet me again,

someday, dance with me and hold my hand.

It was a meager beginning, but I grasped it like a lifeline,

swept in the ocean of my confused mind and desperately trying to stand.

 

I made a rash decision.

“I’m always by the wharf,” I said, unusually bold.

I understood I had nothing to lose, and he gave his consent;

he kissed my hand goodbye, and slowly released his hold.

 

“Miss Kintner?” he asked me, his tone light.

“Call me Ada,” I insisted in reply.

“Ada,” he corrected, smiling slightly,

“I do hope this isn’t our last goodbye.”

 

I smiled in return, and my heart leaped

through sun-filled meadows and summer days.

For nights on end, I could not sleep;

 By mornings, I rushed down Hutchinson’s Street to wait.

 

Days passed, and no appearance of young, chivalrous,

kind and graceful Mr. Allerton. Inside I was dying;

I felt as if I would burst from crushing rejection

and any accompanying amount of tearful sighing.

 

On the fifth day of near despair, I stood silently,

watching the murky waves lap at the shores,

when a sudden presence seemed to warm the air,

and I wondered, happily, why he hadn’t come before.

 

“Allerton,” I began, and he put out a restraining hand.

“Call me John,” he corrected. It was my turn to smile

and marvel, and muse, and think about how no one

had been able to make me this blindingly beguiled.

 

We talked for hours, watching the waves, the boats
on the waves, until the sun set.
It was surreal, a summer day on Griffin’s Wharf;
all through these years, a memory that I’ve kept.

Like a slowly blossoming rose, so our love blossomed;
we met each other on the docks, and talked for hours.
I can only dream of him; the kisses he bestowed me, the letters he sent
and a single, radiant, blood red rose; his favorite flower.

I grew out of my far-fetched childhood, out of
the gowns, the jewelry, and into two frenzied hearts beating as one.
He loved me. The world was complete. I had fallen in love
as a delicate girl of sixteen, and there was nowhere else I belonged.

Months and years could have passed, surely—
we would not have changed. It was deep within our intertwined hearts
that we would be together until the end.
It was something we had expected, ever since the perfect start.

I remembered everything he had said.
He’d grasped my hand tightly,
staring into my eyes with unforeseen urgency.
Then—”Marry me,” he said, lightly.

The family had been ecstatic,
but compared to my euphoria, they seemed greatly subdued.
We were content, very content—no one had ever loved me
in such a way he had, and my happiness had been long overdue.

“I see in you,” he had said to me, “the ocean, the stars
the sky, and the meadows of this esteemed nation.”
America. I had grown to appreciate the revolutionaries,
and longed for the dawn of the country’s creation.

I had neglected the cause for so long,
ignored the ideals of the inspired rebels.
I blindly supported the passionate protestors—
surely, freedom outweighed all of this dangerous trouble.

As a privileged, engaged young woman in Boston,
I had connections. Tea parties, dinners
I spoke for the cause, joined the campaigns,
and condemned those “red-coated sinners”

Just days before we became husband and wife,
the Sons of Liberty gave word of a new movement.
“Let us protest the taxation without representation;
we shall forge our way through this virulence!”

And so the people did. We did protest.
We heeded the calling of the people
And word spread from the commoners, a
resounding signal: church bells ringing from the steeple

Faneuil Hall was filled—as a woman, I of course
was not allowed to enter. But I knew
what was happening, and I wanted a part.
I was caught up in the revolutionary milieu.

Shouting masses of Boston, us daring commoners
with our hearts flying atop our overabundance of hope,
we declared our support for a revolution, and an all out war.
Their control, we fervently believed, was on the ropes.

One month later on Griffith’s Wharf, John and I,
now the married Allertons, gathered to witness a powerful scene.
The British tea ships had docked; crates and crates of tea, stacked
atop the ship, were thrown into the sea.

Amidst the yells, the cold air, and the stifling crowd,
I realized it would have to be war.
Long battles and strong men, fighting for the freedom
and the equality, and perhaps even for more.

I was caught between my loveliest dreams,
and reality. It was quite a beautiful life—
there was no feeling quite like it—and I…
I was living in paradise.

Then Trade Act 1774 came along, and I could no longer
visit my beloved wharves and watch the quiet waves.
There was no bustling port; all activity stalled.
It was clear to all: this burgeoning nation’s freedom had to be saved.

Laws passed, and with it, months passed as well.
It was strange how little we value rights
until they are taken away, and we are left with shells
of our former lives, and tales of our miserable plight.

The days grew shorter, and time marched on,

faster than a frightened warhorse.

The Redcoats, those Lobsters, had never relented

in their attempts to control us through crushing force.

 

When I first heard word of the First Continental Congress,

the hope in my heart was elevated.

Hope. It turned into a painfully acute feeling of…

anticipation. And suddenly, my appetite for change could not be sated.

 

All was well until April of the following year. On the eighteenth,

Paul Revere rode around the city, warning us.

“The British are coming!” he shouted, and the people scattered.

Resolute and defiant, the militiamen stood ground, guarding us.

 

Amidst the action and the turmoil, I could tell.

John was eager to fight;

to bleed for the country, to feel a nation’s victory,

to help America finally see the light.

 

I do not know how many times I pleaded him

not to leave me, to stay.

I was worried, and it was a proper reaction.

But against his fierce, patriotic determination, I had no say.

 

He enlisted for the Continental Army on the eighteenth of June.

He had looked so handsome, so young, so gallant and brave.

“Send my regards to General Washington.” I had tried to smile

as he left, but I scarcely knew how to behave.

 

He was leaving, plunging into the unstable depths of war,

and I was unable to stop him.

I held him close one last time, and it felt as if my heart,

once a radiant, shining light, had suddenly dimmed.

 

“Write to me,” I whispered into his warm embrace.

He murmured his consent, and we held each other.

It was a beautiful spring morning, and the air was cool and sweet,

but deep inside, I felt as if I were being smothered.

 

“I love you,” I said quietly, one last goodbye.

I had pictured this scene. It had been one of my worst fears.

Private Jonathan Stewart Allerton of the Continental Army.

He left me standing in the street, both of us in silent tears.

 

The war pushed on, but now I was alone.

We sent letters, but of course words were never enough.

One year passed, another, too. It was terrible.

The pressure was mounting, and even home life became rough.

 

The Siege of Boston was upon us; I was deathly afraid

of leaving the house, so inside I stayed.

John had planned on returning, but allowance was not granted.

Our once-certain victory, it seemed, had been delayed.

 

Months passed, and it was now 1776. The Siege

had ended, but still no visit from John.

The letters became longer than ever, and the ink sometimes mingled

with our tears. I realized it is intensely difficult to stay strong.

 

July 4^th, 1776. Declaration of Independence.

Word spread faster than wildfire at that news,

and I knew hope once again. Of course, that hope waned,

and I longed to hear the voice of my lover soon.

 

“I love you,” I would write in every letter I sent, and he’d

say the same. But still I worried,

and my nervousness increased as his letters gradually

became shorter, subtle, more hurried.

 

Where was he? He could not tell me, for fear of

those pesky, traitorous turncoats. Spies.

I could not help but sit alone at my kitchen table,

and fear, hopelessly, for his life.

 

October 7^th, 1776. I received a letter from him, in barely legible writing,

that he was injured. My heart could have imploded

at those words. He said he was returning soon. So I waited for him,

crying for a week and perhaps more. My strength had been eroded.

 

But as I waited for weeks, a month, and longer still,

I feared the worst. It was a still, quiet December dawn

when there came a knock on my door. It was an officer,

stiff and steady, but his expression too grave. Something was wrong.

 

He told me he was out on the wharf, gravely injured.

In all my years I don’t believe I have ever cried as I did that day.

His face was void of hope, and it was set with a terrifying certainty.

He told me John wanted to see me. He had a few final words to say.

 

Like a blind man, I followed him to the wharf. Griffin’s Wharf,

where we wooed, where we married, where we became lovers.

I knelt beside him, my injured prince who had sacrificed so much

for the way this struggling nation was to be governed.

 

“Ada,” he said, a stray tear rolling down his soiled cheek.

“Ada, look at me,” he said. “I want to say goodbye,”

and that was when I whispered that he’d never leave me,

that I’d be with him even if he died.

 

I didn’t want to speak those words, but I knew it was necessary.

The blood on his uniform shattered my heart into a million pieces.

It was, most definitely, not a clean break, and it has never healed.

My eyes stared hungrily figure, his uniform, the fabric, the creases.

 

It was my last time looking into his eyes, and as he shuddered,

and choked, and gasped for the cold December air,

he could barely say “I love you.”

And after those three words, he was no longer there.

 

He was gone, and for a moment nothing mattered.

Once kneeling, I was now laying on the dock, his hand in mine,

and I was still. I was cold, I was deflated, and I was still.

Temporarily devoid of emotion, I thought of those wonderful times.

 

“I do hope this isn’t our last goodbye,” his murmur echoed wildly

in my frenzied head. The revolution—it didn’t matter, I thought.

I had supported the revolution, and he had supplied his life.

And before the benefits, I could only think of all the terror it had brought.

 

Choking on the misty air, inhaling the sharp tang of the harbor,

I lay there, blind to the passersby who looked on as I cried.

It was the day I lost myself. I am still trying to find my soul

but I am certain it is with him, somewhere far away, up there in the sky.

 

I had been free, and innocent,

and immune to the deathly disease

of war, violence, and the cries

of the Revolutionaries.

 

Love had been a fleeting glimpse of Heaven.

It had been my paradise, my utopia,

and in those brief moments with him, I had known love,

known happiness like the back of my hand. I had known euphoria.

 

Now, even as the years pass in this free country,

I grieve and try to find my fallen, lost soul. I have yet to find a solution.

Sometimes I stand before his grave and place there his favorite rose.

It had been my favorite, too, but now, I am a widow of the revolution.