Survivor’s Guilt
There is a wall in Washington.
In your heart looms
a wall of pain memory
cannot penetrate.
Details destroyed by
the shadow of war.
The shadow that falls
between what was survived
and what should not have been.
The barbed wire of fear
separating an impossible then
from an unlikely now.
A shatterzone where
wandering, restless shades
still patrol perimeters,
whispering their stories,
while you live on in a
world that you have
no right to enjoy.
The bullets missed you then.
The dead miss you now.
The call to you every night
inviting you to join them
on the other side
of that dark line
in the no man’s land
you accidentally escaped.
They only want to
welcome you home
to the grave peace
you know you cheated,
the community of death
you should have joined
decades of life ago.
They offer you laughter,
cigarettes and c-rations,
the intimate comforts
of mud and blood,
an alluring chance
to return to the end
that should have been.
And they are more
persuasive every day.
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The famished cassowaries of winter gather…
