I didn’t cause the war.
But, by god, I fought.
Fear wasn’t anything more,
Than unvoiced thought.
Feet stiff on the cold floor,
blood raced hot,
Eyes searching desperately for a door
that was not.
What a strange thing, this fear—
A guaranteed defeat—
A nonexistent retreat.
Heart in my throat I weakly sat,
Watching children dragged to battle!
Driven like high-bred cattle.
Sacrifice mind and heart,
Part by bloody part
Sat still on a sturdy wooden steed,
Cowardice, a parasitic weed.
Voice, thought, action—it would impede.
We were weak to run, weaker to proceed.
Frozen, frantic, fearful, as we’d bleed.
The ground moves, gathering speed.
All around, dust stirs from the stampede.
All of us children, victims of this deed,
Following orders as they were decreed.
All of us children—just learning to read.
And then the metal stones began to fly.
Some flew past—some found premature flesh.
Some voices vanish as they die.
Others become louder—a terrorized cry.
The air turned a misty red.
My mouth tasted of powdered lead.
The screams, my ears would shred,
And blasts, like battle drums, spread
Through the narrow passes overhead.
The oblong stones flew again.
This is the
punishment for gluttony
of knowledge, I suppose?
This cruel bombarding rain—
this hailstorm of flame,
Was a red-lined sentence that no
one dared oppose.
What a strange thing, this fear
we children felt—
Have you seen fear?
Let me paint the expression clear…
It is stained with red, but remains gray,
It is the breath caught by a gory display.
It is the seconds between courage and dismay,
It is the the coldest ice that makes you pray
It suffocates like the heavy breath of decay.
When it ended? I don’t know.
The world stood stiff and slow.
My friends lay silent and still, a tableau.
A few lay awake—await for their time to come.
Others fell into a deep sleep, to death they succumbed.
Some mumbled in pain, their groans a vibrating hum.
When the veil of fear lifted,
The drone of blood-rush quieted.
And I felt that the Earth had tilted,
Leaving me in the corner of history
To speak alone,
My voice into a recording stone.
Past and present, become a mindless drone
Of sound and time, and all I’ve ever known.
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