He stands where silence hums against the grain,
A soldier bound by ghosts behind his eyes,
Steel threads his chest, but not his ache or strain
The faded photos whisper lullabies.
Each taped-up moment clings like prayer to wood,
Though time has thinned what brotherhood once stood.
The camo hugs like armor and like chain,
Yet every fold remembers where he’s bled.
The wall, a shrine to joy not born of pain,
Still leans with shadows of the living dead.
He guards the space where memory dares to tread,
A quiet oath still echoing, unsaid.
The mirror watches with a hollow stares
Not quite a man, not wholly lost to war.
The past reflected, stripped and laid out bare,
Tattooed with names he doesn’t speak any more.
His silence roars where once he swore with pride,
Now draped in years he never set aside.
The brothers in that photograph still grin,
Suspended in a frame, immune to dust.
But he’s the one left carrying memories of them,
Their birthdays, burdens, courage, grit, and trust.
They marched beside him, now he walks alone,
A relic housed in flesh, not yet stone.
So steel your heart, and do not call it brave
This life of war is not a badge to wear.
Each breath he takes, he pulls out of the grave,
Each smile a lie, each laugh a threadbare prayer.
The vest may guard his ribs from a bullet's intent
But never from the hollow grief of death.
Looking at old pictures of my time in the Army, fills me with a weighted sigh of relief and regret. A simultaneous invasion of feelings and remorse.