~ GHOSTLY SOLDIER ~

There are others,

All around us,

Everywhere, every day,

Who battle their way

Through more terrifying ghosts

Than the killers who wrought them,

Brought them,

Then left them here inside us

Ticking

Will ever know.

Perhaps more than

Your killer will ever care

Or will ever be aware

Enough

To notice

All the mortal devastation

Left here

In their wake.

A war zone

Revisited again and again

Inside one still-loving human heart.

And worst of all

Is the way they

Haphazardly crash in for

Another killing spree

Passing through still closed doors

Exploding inside your spirit

Exploding

When least expected.

One moment

You’re fine and making it,

The next moment

Your train

Derailed for hours or a day,

By ghosts of love

Whose quiet terrors

Refuse to die and stay dead,

Damn them

To hell and back

Why won’t they just go,

Go far away with their

Faithless phantoms

Of friend and lover

Go far away

And stay?

There’s no bayonet

To keep them at bay

And there’s no point in

Attention to such a

Guarded question really.

Nobody answers in memorium

Or gives a flying duck and cover

In the decorated graveyard.

But the killer

And the killer’s ghosts

They troop

Around and around

Inside skull and heart

While often they flay

Everything you were and are

Apart

Until it takes every muscle

In the remains of your

Mind and body

To just put one foot

In front of the other,

To just keep moving,

Marching dead but onward

Silently screaming

Medic! Medic!

Waiting for a little more

All-too-brief relief

Just crying to stay alive

As your killer’s agony

Grows bolder and bolder

And that, my comrade,

Is why you had to be a soldier

A soldier to survive.

Yes, you are a soldier.

Until your dying day is done.

I know a soldier

I know a soldier

I know a soldier

When I see one.

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RT

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(for Louis)

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© Randy Thornhorn

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