The rose lies, carefully placed next to his name.
His eldest son has just turned five and doesn't know he's buried there,
among many other faceless graves.
The soft glow of a candle, lit over his last letter.
She holds it close, his warmth she craves.
His last words, only written to ease the suffering
merely prolong the pain:
"I'll love you, always."
Twenty-one when he left,
cold and breathless when he returned;
wearing an expression pleading to be spared from the
tragedies already occurred.
Sleeping restlessly in a coffin, he died in combat -
a knife to the waist, legs severely burned.
So as not to wake the children she sits and attempts to calm herself; grabbing a pen and paper to write one last letter back to him:
"They taught you ******* and not care, how to
mercilessly end what you couldn't possibly understand.
You learnt to block out the dying screams as you also
silenced your own fears. You thought you were freely giving
part of yourself, while they crept in,
silently like a cancer; they took
everything from you my dear."