He didn’t hug me when he got off the plane that day Instead he made sure to keep my at arms length away Because hugs are how you show you are close to someone And no matter how hard he tried to block out the images and sounds he remembered watching everyone close to him blown away And buried with the shrapnel parts that tore through them That’s the moment I realized that He left a boy and came home a used empty shell of a man Whose eyes aged and matured far beyond the years of a 25 year old boy Eyes that were glazed over in stories that I was not yet ready to hear And he knew that So through zippered lips he spoke nothing And through arms tied behind his back With a self made restraint jacket He went on living Because that is what he was trained to do And though he was no stranger to insomnia The nights turned to days a lot quicker lately And he would struggle through night tremors and terrors Until the day I found him Rocking himself back and forth constantly chanting “No body makes it out of here alive anymore.” “No body makes it out of here alive anymore” And he tattooed “Sorry” And the remembrance of names all over his body But the biggest one of all was the one that read “Guilt” Covering a bullet wound and scared flesh Because you’re not suppose to leave anyone behind And for him to make it out alive meant that someone else had to die And that’s the day that I told his father “Not all casualties of war come home in body bags” And he is living proof of that Before as he breathes breaths of life into his chest His eyes walk with the dead And once I was safe enough to touch again With hands as rough as the shrapnel that left him broken He traced over old battle wounds on my Face, legs, and arms Quizzingly questioning their origins And when time took its toll on my memory Wiping it clean of blocked out tales He scolded me spouting anger from his quiet shell “how could someone forget their wounds?” because each comet carved crater left on his body made him stronger and each mark was a memory of someone who didn’t make it And if he could tattoo names and dog tags on his heart he would Because those stories and those people are the ones that kept him going When we’re little we are told “every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings.” Only he has already been through hell And when he dies he doesn’t want his wings Because he doesn’t want to sit up there have to watch this happen again So while we deck ourselves out in yellow ribbons And American flags made in China He leads protest chants of “bring our brothers and sisters home” because it’s hard to be patriotic when you’ve been forgotten because when he looks for handouts from strangers he gets nothing but dirty looks and when he wants to tell his stories no one wants to listen because it’s easier to remain distant when you have no clue So as Americans We support causes from a far Because that’s what we are told to do Forgetting the reality of what is going on Our homes are safe havens Where as long as we watch the news as a family We can stay hidden in our turtle shells Forgetting the mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters That are hurting from casualties of war.
Very touching. I can relate. My brother served in Viet-Nam. After decades, he still rarely speaks of it.
