"Oh yeah? Did you **** anybody?"

Is what people ask when they see
smeared across my past
like a bloodstains on a white sheet
US Marine
Iraq
twice

And they cant understand the answer
because they cant understand the question

“I really think you got that guy man!
We should radio back and get you
a confirmed ****!”

“Im pretty sure I shot that guy in the back.”

"******* Miller and Johnson are dead."

And I never knew what to say to my friends
Because I was busy doing mental math
Emotional equations
In their eyes

How many more times they could be blown up
Before they were unreliable

Divide the fear with rage
Because you had a job to do
Someone had to get in the truck
And push the fragile blindfolded bodies back
With his boot so he could sit down
below the armor
away from the snipers

And one of them was shaking
it was cold
And his cowering skinny teenage body shook
It was like mine had been not long ago
For the whole convoy
three hours

And I carry these memories in the same tissues as the ones
that carry my sleeping infant son
nuzzled against my chest
under a blanket
warm
safe

Some of us let them spill out of our veins
Onto bathroom floors
In ditches and alleys
car wrecks
shaking

Any good devildog prefers the screams of the dying
to the screams of the living.

And the math keeps coming out negative
When I equate the cost of our
cell phones candy wrappers
vibrators golf courses
with
https://www.amnestyusa.org/pdfs/sscistudy1.pdf

And I subtract the dark areas of my mind
From what can be filled with love
And am still at war.

If and when I return,
I would like to be an earthworm.
Consciousness buried deep in dark ground,
Embraced by the stone silent earth.
To suffer neither hunger nor lust,
Cold or greed.
To toil ceaselessly and timelessly,
To sacrifice myself blindly to sun or bird.
If not to be spared the pains of death,
Then at least those of life.

Happy words like tears,
Soak into the page.
Sad words like sunbeams dry them away.
So clean and so clear,
Like animal rage.

Free will is
getting out of someone elses bed,
putting on clothes someone else made,
under a ceiling someone else raised,
walking across a floor someone else built,
pouring coffee someone else grew,
into a cup someone else bought you,
driving a car someone else designed,
powered by fuel someone else refined,
down a road someone else planned,
to fulfill requests and make demands.
Freedom is
closing your eyes
and being okay.

Thank you Lord Vishnu
For the bones of this demon.
A swing to the left encompasses time,
A swing to the right encompasses space.
I am here in the middle to be stretched and balanced.
I am here to be broken and strengthened.
To be purified and prepared for the next swing,
When I take up these bones again.

I am the son of Thor.
The blood of Odysseus runs in my veins.
I breathe thunder.
My heart is the ocean.

Do you think I am the son of Cain
To trade my inheritance for your bowl of soup,
For your shiny things that vibrate and spin,
For your **** and violence,
For your ***** pills and swimsuit models?
I will close my eyes to your neon lights.
I will hold my breath against your sweet poison.
I will close my ears to your siren call.

I will dive below the cluttered surface of my consciousness.
I will seek in the darkness and find the spark of the sacred feminine
where she slumbers in the cold stone stillness,
Lightning will surge through my nerves
and I will explode into flame.

Your filth will rise from me like smoke,
Your carnal lies will fall away like ash,
I will smash your idols like twisted mirrors,
And you will remember god.