It’s the mirror you don’t look into,
the one without the morals,
emotions, doubts and fears.
How much wisdom do you gain
in confronting your older self,
tailing it thru a city of statues
and bridges, fighting with it
in the catacombs amidst
an audience of smiling skulls?
You have trained to be the good soldier,
one that doesn’t doubt the orders given,
tuned your mind to see the world
as targets and you as the weapon,
happiest when flat on your belly
and ready to pull the trigger,
letting the bullet be the arbiter
that makes sense of the world,
knowing at your martial core
your country deserves
the perfect version of you.
You don’t close your eyes
as you watch the bullet’s flight,
follow the darkness you must walk thru,
knowing sleep is where the ghosts are,
and the blink where the pain resides.
You think of your father
and his raised hands,
how your creator
tries to **** you
when you turn
and develop a conscious.
You don’t doubt
you are better than that.
“I love you son.
Don’t let yourself down,”
you imagine the bullet howling.
Or is it the far away man
in your gun sight?
You see yourself dying
to be in a relationship,
a husband, father,
all the things he got
and you will never get to be.
As the bullet nears its target,
all those things knock you
back in the gun’s recoil and
you know that he deserves to die.