SOLDIER *
I’ve watched the same sun rise and fall
The same it has for years,
But never does it give the humble
Or the warmth it used to.
My eyes are my own,
And as many things I have seen…
I could say I saw the world in one day,
And saw enough of the truth to make me ill until the day I would die.
Though death never strayed far from our own shadow…
Those torturous past summer days
As we trudged through the mud
Until our knees bled.
Soon did pain become a desire,
Only wishing for enough to kill us where we’d lye.
The colour in the world has faded,
From orange and blues to shades of grey,
As so has my silvery hair,
Just like the smile I had in younger days.
These battle wounds and scars look as fresh as they were when I received them,
Though these ones here, I induced myself.
Nothing could take away
; the knowledge I surrendered to,
Of the thousands of unacknowledged things
A pair of hands can do.
-These hands now aged old with misery,
And distant memories
Never feeling further then yesterday.
-Are the same I made into weapons
And hand grenades.
And as many times I’ve scrubbed my skin raw,
Never have I been able to wash the blood and dirt away.
Every night is the same as it was then;
Restless, sleepless.
We weren’t young minds with dreams,
But weakened bodies with no time.
-Only made home feel so much further away,
Then a boat or plain.
And as we hungered for our freedom,
And long desired for our loved ones,
Something inside our souls was awakening;
A dark shadow that would never be put to sleep.
And worse,
Would never leave our side
As I turn my crooked head to the left,
I still see him sitting beside me.
Oh how that shiver that runs down my spine haunt me.
Enough to see a breath of ice wheeze from my given lungs.
I sit here in this empty room,
And I still hear the voices.
All the cries for help,
The begging for mercy.
The sirens,
The clicking and clinking of weaponry,
And bullets,
Gunfire,
Dropping of bombs.
I even still smell the distant scent of ash and coal on my fingers…