Loyalty

Loyalty is a rare thing.
It is
very strong, almost impossibly so
and very few have this
genuine strength.
Very few stay
almost all of us go.
Loyalty is
serious.
Loyalty is
smart.
It does not
fool around
and it
will not be fooled.

It waits, ever so patiently, deciding
if and
when
to partner up, to give itself over,
it waits for a
very
long
while
before it decides
to hold on.
When that choice is made
to love,
to hold on, to stay,
it goes deeper than
secrets in a grave.

Loyalty has
roots.
It also has reasons
and should those reasons-
ones that were once
the perfect combination to get a mighty beast like loyalty
to lie down and
stay, inexplicably so
like predator and prey-should
those reasons change
into something
hateful, harmful, or
disengaged.
Loyalty will uproot itself,
because it knows better than to endure
the continual
whack of an axe.
Loyalty is earned and once that
finally occurs
it is faithful but it is never
tamed.

Loyalty and its unchangeable purity
is a rare species
that seems to be dying out so if
you
find one of these great kings
roaming steadfastly and
you
manage to convince this
seldom seen creation not to
devour,
although it can
without even thinking
since it is built that way.
Clawed and
fanged
yet soft and warm.
It chooses what to use.
A defender.
Refined overtime
as a rebellion to the
lukewarm and
manipulators.
Opposite to the liars and retreaters,
foe of the users and
abusers,
feared by the
slippery and the shallow.
Loyalty does not play and
It is content to walk alone.
Should
you
convince it
to share the path that
it has formed,
do not ever step
where your foot does not belong.

Perhaps the
devastation
won’t happen at first, perhaps
there will be grace,
because it
is faithful and careful
and understanding.
Also honorable to its decisions
and to those it decided to
walk beside.
If the crisscross does not end
however, and the
only continuance
is obstruction, blatant disregard, and
lack of remorse.
Loyalty will leave because it will not become
slavery.
Loyalty is not like love
in that it can and probably will
come around again.
It is a predator that is capable of respecting prey but
if it is not respected
in return, if it is not treated well, if all that it gives-which would be all that it is-in its entirety.
If that is not appreciated,
It will return to its natural
dominant nature.
The switch cannot
be flipped back.
Love it kindly,
treat it well,
respect it unceasingly.
Otherwise,
you
will not ever see it again,
and trust absolutely that
you
would not want too.

Once trampled, once
forgotten
once betrayed,
loyalty knows only
savagery.