Beware the Ties of War

A fine autumn it was

When duty called to brains and brawn.

Pride encouraged me to stain my palm

With an admiral blue ink

That I signed my life vain.

I did not act as the cowards did:

Disable himself or feign hopeless illness.

No,

I wished not to run

In a nature so faint

For I never felt the need to feel afraid.

When the final decision was made,

The women shook,

Their tears splattered

Under the roof,

But my father felt proud to give me his name.

I was to honour the country, my family

By fulfilling my duties

- The requirements to becoming a war hero;

I felt content with such a destiny.

Immediately,

Drowned in mud and sweat,

The choking smell of gunpowder filled the air

From distance’s haze.

The warm blood of friend and foe

Gathered into my blue-stained palms day by day

Until it spilled and merged with the polluted rain.

My forefathers had told stories

Of great honour and victory,

But none had warned me

Of demons lurking in reflections, in shadows;

No one told me the battlefield was a dull Christmas scene.

Much too soon,

The smells of vermin penetrated even my mind

While nightly whispers filled my thoughts

With fearful but truthful lies.

In the end, the camp left me behind

With one less leg and one less head.

The comrades who merely survived,

But not lived,

Returned

My empty body.

They called me a warrior,

But if my loved ones heard from our enemies,

 

I would have been called a monster (.)

 

If I was the only one standing,

But all sides the kids surrounding

Wear their expressions in similar distaste

Just as I.

So easy it is to put on a smile,

Such that it decorates our many lies

In front of the stupid enemy

While we lead them to our base,

Then off they go exploding.

This

For our mamas and papas who flew into the sky,

For our brothers and sisters who failed to survive.

Bitter juice and stale crackers on a small tin plate

Are enough to vitalize our resolves each day.

The battlefield becomes our playground,

And so we play tragedies in every round.

At the end of the day,

The sunset melts into the land,

And we once more understand;

We’re not at home safe and sound

Because we’re pups in collars

Chained and bound

By things adults call responsibility,

Whereas we call it rage.

The tunes of our childhood are faint in the spring

Breeze that reminds us of a once innocent view

When apple pies were once shared in the neighbourhood,

 

Those times no one saw reason to cry (.)

 

Were times I spent denying fright,

But times of horror stretched out my sighs,

So I took myself to the winter outside.

Allowing the frost to bite my skin,

Only then I could longer feel alive.

Mundane chores were put behind war;

Wives with children ushered them behind doors.

It became harder to remember his appearance,

His scent, his touch,

His everything that made me willingly insane.

Our embraces were too short;

Our positions too far.

Time faded his presence

Into the corners of our hearth.

I had veiled my head until recent days;

Except my groom vanished into the waves.

That liar a lover promised eternity,

And yet he volunteered to leave so quickly

Without a thought about his wife's safety.

How very fortunate I did believe

When my brother by law offered support,

But those words were only candy coated;

Soon the debt was more than I could afford.

He visited me during nights

When he desired a fancy w***e.

I couldn't stop him;

He was the blood of whom I adore,

So I shut my eyes,

Muted my heart,

And into my love his trace I did distort.

Every day I scrubbed my sins away,

And yet,

 

They would always come back in greater pain (.)

 

As if suffering underneath the scorching sun

Wasn’t already enough.

Men in uniform carried our baby

Back into our arms,

But he was broken

And torn on the inside.

With those burns on his face,

He’ll never have a wife,

But that wasn’t our greatest worry

Because of his nights

That made us also despise

The traumas which blinded his light.

Our poor child we worked hard to raise

Has fallen too instantly

By the pull of dignity.

The neighbours say,

“At least he’s alive,”

But how can that corpse be alright?

Even in comfort of his bed,

He feels the pressure

Of pity and sympathy for he’s no longer worthy.

With our rusty spines and shaky knees,

We don’t have long

Until we join the death party.

Who will then care for our damaged son daily?

 

Even we can’t maintain eternal composure.

End.