She told me not all casualties come home in a body bag.
I didn’t believe her.
Thought that the game of war
was a way for men to ignore
all the problems at home.
Escape to a childhood world of shoot or don’t shoot.
Then I saw you.
The boy I used to watch when as he flew,
across a wooden dance floor
girls eyes glued
to his boots that tapped a rhythm their own;
while the drummers envied his tune.
You came home,
burn scars down your side.
Told me you watched a man die for you
the same man that got you through,
friends and comrades who only you knew.
You don’t dance anymore.
A boy who laughed as he fell three stories from a pine tree in my back yard,
now sits a man stoic brought to just tears when the door slams too hard
I hear you went back to the desert.
Asked to go,
and finish the job in a way
only you know.
I pray to God each night
that you make it home.
He asks what I think your doing right now
my brother worries.
Asking millions of questions
I can’t answer
I wouldn’t know how
to explain to him that you’re probably
just sleeping in your barrack
dreaming about your daughter.
I know there’s a chance
you’re dodging bullets downrange
again.
And tonight you don’t sleep silently
you’re tossing and turning remembering the way his blood felt on your hands.
As you were trying to decide
if it was you that was dead.
I saw your class A’ s
the day you said I do.
And now they all want me to interpret
what it may feel like just to be you.
I cant tell them what I don’t know
I wont tell what I trained for.
Because now I know that the empty body bags really hold the horror |
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