Bakmut

They say that a whole bunch of folks died they say they were sent in the Russians with shovels at points instead of guns I have no idea what it would be like to die like that my struggles are internal my lines are deeply divided my trenches are fortified like them but you don’t see the smoking holes in the road or the ruined bits of armor or the lack of people or farm animals or birds or anything but the crunch of tires over broken bits of what used to be things that growled and chomped and snarled and now lay silent broken toys broken bits of the clockwork machinery of death. My own road is also littered with bones and hopes and strings and threads of plans that went dry or people who burned up in front of me people who once growled and chomped and snarled flaked as ash and became the breeze my soul bent like a tin soldier an old toy someone I used to lean over and fight back against the clockwork machinery of death.