I have bad dreams.

They come, unbidden, into my room at night.

They pass through the maze of my alcoholic daze;

They take me back,

Back to a dusty desert road;

Our convoy is headed towards Mosul.

But we never make it there:

The Humvee is upended by an eardrum shattering blast.

I am falling.

I see you are screaming but there is no sound..

Blackness.

I died three times on the medivac copter

But the Corpsman kept bringing me back.

I have bad dreams

In them I see the faces of the dead,

They are the faces of my friends;

My friends, for whom I mourn

Until this heart becomes a stone.