It seems as though my sounds grow fainter
Against the backdrop of bullets,
Snapping bones against metal;
Metal against skin.
I suppose atonement would be in order,
But I instead turn my back to you.
I lie here watching your tortured sky
Pleading to grow dark again,
Yet flames refuse to climb back into the barrels.
Where did it come from, that gunshot
That discharged through the back of a general’s skull
And embedded itself into a thousand
Pelts of skin only slightly thicker
Than the air that pumps through them.
My blood resides on those hands, but you I turn my back on.
You laced me together, with camouflage twine;
Placed me with mourners-to-be, as a child,
Fed me knowledge, tantalized with promise,
Gifted a life a will to live,
Only to die on a pedestal, perhaps
A martyr to the scalpel dragged across my chest
Tracing skin the color of too-late.
Your churned earth presses my mindful cadaver
Into contorted positions;
Positions of honor, stars blocking my vision,
But oh this heartless honor, not to be tasted.
To be read, but not autobiographically,
To be taken from the hospital bed,
Tonight a bed of shrapnel,
To be existent, or human,
Or something in between,
But God, if you are there, you can not be.
I am steeped in cynicism, but what more to ask
Than to die like a rose, in a bed of soft.
To leave like the flora sprouting beside me;
Lovely, red, not yet mature.
Dear lord, let this benevolent pallbearer
See the dark of night once more.