Which one is he?

He’s the one that asks for the table by the wall where he can see all the exits.

He’s the one who holds your hand slightly behind him and positions himself between you and the joggers in the park who might threaten your life.

He’s the one who holds his cigarette with the ember cupped in his hand - maintaining light discipline even standing outside the mall.

He’s the one that cleans his plate when you cook for him because he knows what it’s like to live on MREs and ibuprofen.

He’s the one with the smile that never reaches his eyes - the pain that never leaves his soul.

He’s the one that came back to you only in the physical form - who’s mind is still in the field with his brothers.

Don’t ask which one he is - because if you can’t tell - you will never know. The mark is in his flesh -  and in the eyes that see the ugly world the way it is, so you don’t have to.

We had an enemy we didn't understand
We had an ally we couldn't rely on
All we had was each other
All we had was our brotherhood
All we had was our rigorous training
We were baptised in fire and violence
We were sunk in cruel unrelenting combat
We struck back like Hammer and Anvil
We kept hope in a nightmare paid with blood, sweat and tears
Some of us left without a beating heart
Some of us made it but forgot how to live
Some of us turned our scars to success
However those left of us that have managed to survive...
We all feel as if we're standing in the centre of a Burning House

Brothers by bloodshed.
Family in truth.
With chains forged of trauma and war,
the knowledge of pain binds us in our loyalty.

Buried scars left unseen
Covered by smiles woven by unhealed wounds and broken souls.
Hollowed by the duty that compels us to hide,
We seek solitude when we should seek friendship -
because our training has molded sacrifice into our very flesh.

As we consider the wisdom to fight
and conjure the courage to keep breathing,
Your peace is our only consolation.
Our memories of you become our armor -
shielding us from the demons that brought you to your knees.

We wage this never ending war as one.
We stand with you knowing
That you did not lose this battle.
We fight on in your name
because, broken or not,
Our brothers never fight alone.

- Kymie
28 OCT 2020

When I met you I thought my life would change
I thought my life would have meaning
I thought I was becoming a man

When I met you
My life changed
Not the way I expected though

I stopped doing drugs and smoking
I found love and loved it
I found friendship and cherished it
Friendship betrayed me soon after
Love sent me on my way
I became a party animal
And drug addict

Highschool
When I met you
I thought my life would have meaning,
But my thoughts were deceiving
I was blind to what I was seeing
And lost myself

Tomorrow I'll send you on your way
And there'll be no way to make me stay
I'll never forget you
I'll never regret you
I'll never miss you
Tomorrow my life will change,
But wasn't that how all this started

You raised me from my birth,
Even from when I was a toddler
You promised "by you till death"
Before I even know you're a mother.

My teen years are all before you,
You nurtured me well to be strong
To stand for the right cause, any who
Needs your courage and fight along.

But, the story has changed so great,
You stabbed and pulled triggers on me
So also as the love I have turned to hate,
I deserve better O mother, even me.

Heroes of yesterday are on your street
Clothed with the blood of your brutality
You deserve better and not this hit,
When will you wake to this reality?

Forged in a fire of brotherhood and violence;
Branded and tempered,
you are  called to service.

You step to the front;
relinquishing your home
and dawning the armor of duty and honor.

You feel your heart beat and you know that the tempo does not belong to you.
Your very breath contracted to the country to which you offer your allegiance and life.
Who casts you forth to a world that neither knows or cares who you are.

Who will remember you when this is done?
Who will know what happened here?
You are a piece of a whole;
Parts welded together by the hell that burned you up together and molded soldiers out of the ashes.

And as you kneel before the field of battle;
You take courage in the boots beside you.
You pray because you know that the ultimate sacrifice is not always made by the soldiers who die.

19 OCT 2020

Kymie

I’ll forever remember your hands
as they slide along the smooth metal.
Like an extension of a part of you
that you have touched a million times.
A directed movement without intention;
But filled with intensity.

Your stance conveys a confidence
that is absent in the life you inhabit.
You pretend to be human
until you step into this sanctuary.

This church where you worship is one of
bullets and defiance.
I close my eyes and I can smell the
gunpowder and sin that is uniquely you.
The commandments of this God
are etched on your mind.
Procedure drips from your skin like sweat.
You bleed accuracy and precision.

As you breath in the sites
I can see that you have settled.
Your universe has narrowed to
the target in front of you.
Five feet or a thousand
There is no difference.
The round is a slave to your movements
Your very will dictates his beginning and end.

When your finger squeezes the trigger
I know I have lost you.
The recoil is a natural motion;
Compensated for at birth and dismissed;
like breath expelling from your lungs.

I find that I am jealous of the trust you
have put in the round that has just left you.
You know where it is going;
And you show no surprise when it
follows your instructions exactly.

How could I ever understand you
the way this object does?
Inanimate to me;
But essential to you.
She is the wife;
And I the mistress.
For I may yet learn your mind;
But I can never inhabit your soul.

14OCT2029

I stare into a mid day sky
yet there is no sun in sight.
The canopy hides all from us
except the heat burning our hides.
Our clothes are four days soggy;
Our stomachs cry out in pain
despite a bounty of subsistence
for hunger yields to impending danger.

There be dragons in this Jungle after all.
Agents of evil working in the dark
hunting us as we hunt them.
We forgo the beauty of this scene.
Ignore the music playing amongst the trees,
a joyous festival not meant for us
the tensions are high
the path rough

Suddenly the carnival is silenced
a covenant broken by a single crash.
Commemorated by a yellow white flash
T'is a still moment illuminated in time.
A searing pain blowing through my mind;
I am reclaimed by the land I've fallen upon.
Back home my young wife cries.
My only question... Why?

Sumer, Winter
shine, or rain,
Doesn't matter
its all the same.
Miles are miles.
They have nothing to say.
Littered with sweat;
Haunted by pain

Our backs are broken
Knees begin to give out
Blister upon blister;
yet none fall out
We are to tired to gripe,
so onward we  roam
into the night.

For all of our troubles;
all of our plight
Its just another day
that burdens no ones mind.
Thankless tasks
that consume our lives
If only we knew
When we signed those lines.

Birthdays,
Christmas,
Turkey dinner,
Weddings,
and funerals
replaced by miles,
burnt out bodies,
and restless hearts

For What?

We stare at other soldiers
and wonder why,
we alone
are bastardized.
After all,
does god not love the Infantry?  
Nay...
****** fools are we

It will never change.
It is
as it always will be.
A few good men
herded
straight to the butcher.
Paraded
like cattle.

Its funny though.
Given a second chance
I'd still wear my blue chord
Standing again an Infantryman.
For all of the ****,
For all of the take
I'd rather be a broken *******
than a *****.