If I’d told you anything I would have told you
how I smiled through my tears
when the nurse thought it was the needle
I was afraid of,

how I took enough anesthetic to keep still
a two hundred pound man
but be still my heart, they don’t go by weight,
they feed it right through
to your heartbeat

and how much I wanted consciousness,
to lose the teeth but not the wisdom,
how much I wanted control over my person
that I don’t have over my people.

If I’d told you anything I’d have told you
how your people and mine are at war
like ginger ale and jello,
like the syringe in the drawer and
I bought you a small leather-bound
copy of our favorite play,
the skull will pass between our hands
without a sound,

how I woke up faster than they expected,
everything was worth awake,
they added motrin to my vicodin
and when I finally let myself be swallowed
it was by a too-large army t-shirt.

I’d have said,
my eyes have darkened to the defensive green
they’re wearing over there,
and Arabic is such a pretty language
but mine is bolded blocks,
a defense force defending a country
and a country’s defense of itself,
which is more than I give me.

And you’d have said, I’m sure,
what a waste it is that such a high drug tolerance
is wasted
on the cowardly