REM

If the lack of rem were not the cause to my mayhem,
maybe I could be happy once again.

Instead, I drag my feet and grit my teeth,
my true sorrow forever sheathed.

I laugh and I joke while in the crowds,
It’s the fear of blowing my cover that keeps my sadness in its eternal shrouds.

I’m vague but I engage,
I give up just enough to avoid the spotlight of the stage.

It is the silence that brings bumps to the soul,
A fear of memories will appear as the images begin to flow.

No longer under the vail of night,
Now under the sun do they shine just as bright.

The echoes of rounds chip off the concrete they impact,
The screams of my friends were under attack.

A 9-line I yell through the radio in my hand,
Mentally unaware I hold a strap for my cargo load I am to band.

On my knees I am yelling and praying,
Will a scout weapons team come and save me?

The new scent of a man and a woman in the neighborhood I am at,
it quickly brings me out of my mind that was in mid-chat.

They look and they groan,
The judgement I can feel in my bones.

They hasten past,
To them I am just another damaged person in their path.

No time for me,
and I no longer for them.

This process has made me cold to the world,
A world I used to once live in.

Patriotic I was and an oath did I make,
It was this country I would defend no matter what it would take.

So the years have passed and the war we did lose,
But not before 13 more were lost to a cause we did not choose.

We were told for freedom and glory,
what 18-year-old wouldn’t love this story?

The day soon ends, and I return home once again,
It’s the smiles of a wife and three boys that makes this awful life worth livin.

I play with my boys and teach them all that I can,
Praying to God don’t let them be fooled as the generations before them.

The sun will set as the stars appear,
It will soon be time for karma to enter my dreams of fear.

I’ll toss and I’ll turn while images of horror will continue to burn.
The guilt of my past says I am to blame,
I deserve everything I get, and I agree just the same.

By: Chris Allen