They lay on Normandy.
Two hundred miles away, the empty shells of humans
Who lie below the streets
Felt the poison that lurked above.

They shuffled out of the underground,
Boarding trains and ships like corpses
And dropping bombs from miles above.

A little French boy is spared.
His brother whispers “Bon courage,”
As the rest of the family are taken out back
And shot like mad dogs.

Twenty years later, he stands on the beach
With his young wife
Watching their sons roll and play in the sand.

His tongue tastes a warm salt
That couldn't come from the ocean.
All he can taste from the ocean is blood.

I can see my grandfather clearly
With tears falling down his face
As his mother shuts the piano.
“There will be no music,” she says quietly.

She is an immigrant
And I wonder if she questions the choice
That brought her son to a country where he might lay down his life
For strangers, four thousand miles away.

I can feel him now
Hiding in the apple trees,
High above the others.
He is in Sainte-Mère-Église, and there are enemies below.

And now I take them in my arms
Cradling them like children
“Je vous embrasse, les deux,”
And I lie down on the edge of the ocean at Normandy.

I exhale and hold them close.
The sun is shining, and I do not cry;
It is nothing but salt and water to me.

One of the famous "Barry Hodges Memories" sequence

People think that Waterloo is a fascinating battlefield,
Relatively near to Brussels (where the sprouts come from
and, which are, as you know, a great cause of **** ****-gas).

But believe me there is more to it than that:
As I was wandering around checking out the graves
And generally having quite a nice time when...

A load of drug-crazed German bikers appeared
Sky-high on excess intake of *moules avec pommes frites
And several gallons of extra-strong Belgian beer.

And they leaped on us and bashed the living ****
Out of my poor 99 year old mother-in-law, Deidre,
And left her lying there spasticated on the battlefield.

And for what, a few lousy packets of French cigarettes;
And I needed a metal scoop to rescue her remains to take home;
Dear God, I shall skip any more 19th century champs de guerre.

When i think back to the day I met you, my heart explodes.
I am both the happiest person in the world, because I hugged you, and the saddest because it's been so long.
In class, I can't focus because the memory of your smile keeps coming back to me.
In my head, it never gets quiet anymore because my mind keeps replaying the sound of your chuckle, and those words I've been longing to hear.
No hug will ever feel
as warm
and safe
and happy anymore,
because no one's arms fit me like yours.
You are constantly on repeat in my mind;
your laugh, your smile, your words, your arms, your smell...

I miss you so much, my heart cannot take it anymore.
And I cannot help but wonder,
how you can be the worst thing that's ever happened to my heart when you're the best that's ever happened to me.

I feel like I am living in a shell.
The words "you don't belong here"
are constantly being echoed back
by my limits.
Things that seem to go natural
with everyone around me
are a lot harder in this shell.
With every inhale of life I take
comes an exhale of desperation to live
and not knowing how to.
It deceived me into thinking
it kept me safe but all this time
it has been what was holding me back.
I see that now
but the words keep echoing in my head
youdontbelonghereyoudontbelonghereyoudontbelonghere

Break­ing out of my shell was never an option
I can not survive without it.
But I do want to leave it
and everyone
and everything
I do want to leave.