The living sanctuary.
A corporeal embodiment of love.
Hope for the sinner
Safety for the fearful.

A place to keep and surround
Loving arms
Little footsteps
Sunday breakfasts
Kisses in the laundry room
Showers before bed

Protect this fortress of treasures
Each one different
Unique to the maker
For the den is dangerous
but not to the lion.

31 OCT 2020

Kymie

Brothers by bloodshed.
Family in truth.
With chains forged of trauma and war,
the knowledge of pain binds us in our loyalty.

Buried scars left unseen
Covered by smiles woven by unhealed wounds and broken souls.
Hollowed by the duty that compels us to hide,
We seek solitude when we should seek friendship -
because our training has molded sacrifice into our very flesh.

As we consider the wisdom to fight
and conjure the courage to keep breathing,
Your peace is our only consolation.
Our memories of you become our armor -
shielding us from the demons that brought you to your knees.

We wage this never ending war as one.
We stand with you knowing
That you did not lose this battle.
We fight on in your name
because, broken or not,
Our brothers never fight alone.

- Kymie
28 OCT 2020

Forged in a fire of brotherhood and violence;
Branded and tempered,
you are  called to service.

You step to the front;
relinquishing your home
and dawning the armor of duty and honor.

You feel your heart beat and you know that the tempo does not belong to you.
Your very breath contracted to the country to which you offer your allegiance and life.
Who casts you forth to a world that neither knows or cares who you are.

Who will remember you when this is done?
Who will know what happened here?
You are a piece of a whole;
Parts welded together by the hell that burned you up together and molded soldiers out of the ashes.

And as you kneel before the field of battle;
You take courage in the boots beside you.
You pray because you know that the ultimate sacrifice is not always made by the soldiers who die.

19 OCT 2020

Kymie

I’ll forever remember your hands
as they slide along the smooth metal.
Like an extension of a part of you
that you have touched a million times.
A directed movement without intention;
But filled with intensity.

Your stance conveys a confidence
that is absent in the life you inhabit.
You pretend to be human
until you step into this sanctuary.

This church where you worship is one of
bullets and defiance.
I close my eyes and I can smell the
gunpowder and sin that is uniquely you.
The commandments of this God
are etched on your mind.
Procedure drips from your skin like sweat.
You bleed accuracy and precision.

As you breath in the sites
I can see that you have settled.
Your universe has narrowed to
the target in front of you.
Five feet or a thousand
There is no difference.
The round is a slave to your movements
Your very will dictates his beginning and end.

When your finger squeezes the trigger
I know I have lost you.
The recoil is a natural motion;
Compensated for at birth and dismissed;
like breath expelling from your lungs.

I find that I am jealous of the trust you
have put in the round that has just left you.
You know where it is going;
And you show no surprise when it
follows your instructions exactly.

How could I ever understand you
the way this object does?
Inanimate to me;
But essential to you.
She is the wife;
And I the mistress.
For I may yet learn your mind;
But I can never inhabit your soul.

14OCT2029

In a world where love is currency, be the philanthropist. Be the benefactor that everyone needs. Give away all of it. You can’t take it with you and there is no way that love can cause harm. There is no misuse or corruption possible. So give it away. Even if you never get any back, give it away. Because it’s better to die unloved, than to die having not loved. And maybe you can save someone from leaving this world feeling like they didn’t matter.

KAL - 10 OCT 2020

Kiss away the tears he made.
Let me break the chains that bind you to the loneliness she has forced upon you.

Place my hand on your pulse so that I can feel that it is I who caused it to quicken.
Slide your hand between my thighs and feel the slick evidence of my need for you. Listen to me beg for you to end my suffering.

Tighten your grip on me as you push the length of the hardness that she rejected into the warm tight cavern that I have opened to you. Hear my cries of relief and pleasure as you fill the void that he created in my body and soul.

Pull me closer as my hips rock to the rhythm of our sin. Race with me to the cliff of our eternal damnation. Faster and faster, we are running from our conscience. Don’t slow down, or we will never make the end. Swallow my screams as the waves overtake us.

Hold my hand as we fly over the edge knowing that we saved each other again.

Sometimes I wish you would hit me.
It would hurt less.
And I wouldn’t have to hide behind this smile;
I could cry and scream
And no one would disapprove.

But instead I stand behind my mask
And hold myself together through my pain.
I wait for the day when you will see
The bruises and the blood that are invisible to everyone but me.

17DEC2019