Hearing the news, I stopped cold,

barely dared to breathe in your absence

They shipped you off to be with your brothers,

just eighteen,

in the unknown land of Kandahar

where you would learn to fight

someone else’s battle

Bounded by trust you found new people,

away from your family,

away from my own

 

Three years later

you returned to scarf down

21st birthday barbeque

But we were celebrating so much more

than another year come and gone

We reveled in your blessed life

that we could see with our own eyes,

and touch with the hands of family

that trembled with thoughts of what could’ve been

Your laugh echoed

through that smokehouse scene

and weights were lifted off the shoulders

of everyone who held the burden

of your departure

and the hands of your mother

every day you were gone.

But you were home;

we could breathe in your safety

 

At least for that next week

before the news came of a battle lost

between a tree

and your car

Now six feet under

you lie frozen,

forever dressed in army greens

I was ten years old when I lost you to new brothers

and that uniform,

thirteen when you were lost to a rainy night

and splintered wood

and seventeen when I realized

though you are gone,

I haven’t lost you at all.