"Oh yeah? Did you **** anybody?"

Is what people ask when they see
smeared across my past
like a bloodstains on a white sheet
US Marine
Iraq
twice

And they cant understand the answer
because they cant understand the question

“I really think you got that guy man!
We should radio back and get you
a confirmed ****!”

“Im pretty sure I shot that guy in the back.”

"******* Miller and Johnson are dead."

And I never knew what to say to my friends
Because I was busy doing mental math
Emotional equations
In their eyes

How many more times they could be blown up
Before they were unreliable

Divide the fear with rage
Because you had a job to do
Someone had to get in the truck
And push the fragile blindfolded bodies back
With his boot so he could sit down
below the armor
away from the snipers

And one of them was shaking
it was cold
And his cowering skinny teenage body shook
It was like mine had been not long ago
For the whole convoy
three hours

And I carry these memories in the same tissues as the ones
that carry my sleeping infant son
nuzzled against my chest
under a blanket
warm
safe

Some of us let them spill out of our veins
Onto bathroom floors
In ditches and alleys
car wrecks
shaking

Any good devildog prefers the screams of the dying
to the screams of the living.

And the math keeps coming out negative
When I equate the cost of our
cell phones candy wrappers
vibrators golf courses
with
https://www.amnestyusa.org/pdfs/sscistudy1.pdf

And I subtract the dark areas of my mind
From what can be filled with love
And am still at war.