To My Military Man

We were a team once Back when I first infiltrated your life One pull of a trigger and I became the enemy Yet you still said you loved me Yet we still marched in time While you yelled out cadences filled with lies
Every fight was a battle field All I'd see is black smoke and bomb shells Yes shells Because we had no more bombs to blow up So we kept reloading the empty cases And at night we watched them screech through the horizon down to the broken earth as if it were a firework show Exempt of colorfilled joy, but with all the empact
"What's the point" you pleaded Gun to your head Your form of surrender But I stopped your purple heart from resting No man left behind Even if your dishonorable death would have ended our war
Maybe I just liked the sound of bullets sweeping pass my ear after missing the intended target Maybe I just liked the sound of heavy brown boots as I laid on your chest
So I continued to write Even if my Dear John letters were camouflaged Recollections of green memories Exaggerations of tan futures A future I knew we both couldn't survive At least not together
Next time I'd write to say the truth That you could no longer be my "battle buddy" Too many times had metal surged through my spinal chord Too many visits to Red Cross
Next time I may not have been able to walk out patched up by grey gauze and crimson hope
They say the military brain washes you Although you were already like this Even before the rewiring
They say PTSD is a killer But you were engulfed by your depression And yet handed metallic death
They say look at the bright side Which one The box scratched with your name Or the note scratched with mine
Reading the scribbled madness I know all of two things that it was because you loved me
And that war like ours doesn't have any winners Just people who die
And people who killed them