American Hero
by Jason John Bartholomew
February 25, 2017
I’m a grey shadow upon the wall
in places that you often are;
a reaching hand, a paper cup,
and eyes that never look up.
I know you do not see me,
but I stand here begging please,
hoping you might have mercy
then throw some coins at me.
I was a man, just, but, still a boy
when I took a ship around the world
to kill a man I had never seen
who never did any harm to me.
In killing fields and jungles dark
I reached out and touched the evil heart
and lost both man and boy in me
to the ravages of that fearsome beast.
Beneath our flag, with a knife and gun,
I gleefully hunted down other men.
Such awful sins had to be done,
become a demon or it’s treason, son.
All this, so my fellow countrymen
before stars and stripped podiums could proudly stand,
to deliver spangled speeches crafted in hopes
of weaving the pretence we are all heroes.
Back in the motherland, I received a parade,
then developed transparency and started to fade.
Chronic invisibility ate me away
until I lost most of my opacity.
You speed up, in a hurry to go.
I am a creature you don’t want to know.
You look away, but still it shows,
how you wish to believe there are heroes.
I sleep uneasy in a door near a busy road
but not for flashbacks, they come and they go.
My nightmare screams are from things I know
since returning home as your hero.
But were not those crimes done in your name?
Who gave us weaponry and cheered while we maimed?
We return broken, fractured, not quite the same;
so look at me and see the price that was paid
so you could throw me a coin and scurry away
pretending you are some hero.
