a soldier.<\/p>\n
a cog in the clock<\/p>\n
just a piece in the war machine<\/p>\n
he has a gun in hand and a helmet around his head<\/p>\n
a wife and child back home<\/p>\n
the faces he sees, they stay with him<\/p>\n
pictures that he sketches in the dark of night<\/p>\n
when the bombshells provide the only light<\/p>\n
each day that passes<\/p>\n
the gun moves closer to his pillow<\/p>\n
protecting his small cot from the horrors outside<\/p>\n
layers and layers of grime, blood, and dirt<\/p>\n
coat the skin of the man who was<\/p>\n
the war ends, and his gun never leaves his hip<\/p>\n
back home, the battle wages on<\/p>\n
behind his eyes and below his heart<\/p>\n
his fingers, barrels; his wife\u2019s earrings, grenade pins<\/p>\n
his son\u2019s face is the afghan boy<\/p>\n
small and round and suddenly half gone<\/p>\n
screaming for his daddy to come back<\/p>\n
the man cannot escape<\/p>\n
behind his eyes are gray and red<\/p>\n
the colors of the war-torn sky<\/p>\n
he finds it hard to breathe<\/p>\n
with a gun to his skull<\/p>\n
the screams never reach past the empty house<\/p>\n
his wife\u2019s frigid fingers around severing papers<\/p>\n
bruises color their skin like clouds after rain<\/p>\n
or of orange and red explosions<\/p>\n
in the lull of night<\/p>\n
he paints the walls in their faces, of the men he\u2019s killed<\/p>\n
the curtains cry for violence<\/p>\n
loneliness tugs at his vision<\/p>\n
the war follows him like a shadow<\/p>\n
as constant as the rain that falls outside his window<\/p>\n
the silence screams, and he screams back<\/p>\n
for he\u2019s afraid it might consume him<\/p>\n
driving to the store, he must be silent<\/p>\n
for bombs in his stomach might ring out once again<\/p>\n
the sun streams in through tattered curtains<\/p>\n
glinting off of the dusty medallions and pins<\/p>\n
inscribed with what he once was<\/p>\n
the man has become the war<\/p>\n
and the war has seized the man<\/p>\n
never to return again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Olivia Bennett a soldier. a cog in the clock just a piece in the war machine he has a gun in hand and a helmet around his head a wife and child back home the faces he sees, they stay with him pictures that he sketches in the dark of night when the bombshells provide… <\/p>\n