i am tired of fighting, i am too old, i’ve seen too much

i am throwing down my weapon, i surrender, **** me if you must have blood

i don’t care anymore, i don’t remember what i am fighting for, i just want to go home.

put this war behind me, live to love, not to ****, not to die, for what purpose, for what god.

who will commemorate our battles, and those who have died just yesterday

who will remember our names, aspiration, dreams once we are dead

we are disposable, born to ****, then die, who cares, why care, we served your purpose

we are the pawns, expected to die for the greater good that we can not have

look at your lives, was it worth it, how do you honor Them, those who died, so you can live

i look out into dark, savoring the quiet, the stillness of new dawn, wondering who die today, whose life will end and whose will change forever, sending a shock of wave of pain and grief from an epicenter of a dead soldier

who will die today, whose mother wife daughter will cry today, whose father son brother will fall today

the sun has risen, reality has set in, its time to ride, its time for some to die, we roll the dice, who will land snake eyes

to sit in the humvee, knowing you are playing russian roulette, you can’t  have hope, no inkling of a dream, lose the desire, it is the only way to survive, knowing you may die, give up all hope, consider yourself dead, be grateful at the end of the day when you are not. the drive down suicide alley, like the walk up gallow’s stairs. now i know how they felt. you surrender to fate. you stop thinking, you stop feeling, you go numb.

no longer in control, my life is no longer mine to live or die

i don’t believe in You, not since i was a boy, but i pray, that if we hit an IED, that i die instantaneously. i don’t want to lay on the ground, feeling the horror of dying, crying that i want to live, screaming out for my mother like i’ve seen happen to other guys

there are things worse than death, the living hell of coming home in pieces, physically damaged, emotionally traumatized, spiritually disillusioned, which slowly erodes and destroys your life. a new war, another battle, this time at home, fought in your head. the cycle of trauma 6-9-12, addiction, depression, how long do you let yourself free fall till you hit rock bottom

i am a man, i am not suppose to be afraid, but i am, i can’t show or say, not to them, especially not to you. i am not allowed to show fear, be vulnerable, you will lose respect, stop loving me, tell me to man up, in some subtle way

when everyone has left, everything lost, when the pain is greater than the fear. you must, you will, reach out, or die in combat, killed in action, in the war fought in your mind.

I put on my old boots today
In the leather the sands of the desert ground in deep
I close my eyes and sigh as the taste
Brings back memories I'd rather not keep

Gunmetal black across my back
The crash of thunder, so I thought
But when the sky did not turn black
And weep with the tears that the thunder had wrought

And the sirens screamed
And they still invade dreams
And I fell to my knees
As I watched my friend bleed
On the scorching concrete

I became someone else
My family saw right away
But I've never told them
What happened that day

I keep it locked in
A payment for past sins
As I try to begin
Feeling normal again
But who knows when

Or if

Or how

To forget