Moments Past

Echoing reality rings throughout the distance,
As the muzzle flash curses the night's bliss;

The maroon taints the crimson's purity,

As Death erases a life with a simple kiss.

He was a soldier,

Tormented by foreign war;

He deployed out seven times,

Witnessing four years of horrific gore.

He saw things,

No person should ever see;

He was a part of things,

No person should ever be.

Nightmares were common,

Reliving the moments past;

The deaths of his own friends,

Holding them as they breathed their last.

He returned home a different man,

Crazed from post traumatic stress;

Corrupted by blood-thirst and war,

New problems began to transgress.

He slaughtered his family,

Deeming them unworthy of life;

He viciously murdered:

His three kids and wife.

He broke down to his knees,

In final realization to what he's done;

He cried like never before,

Screaming about the things undone.

He found himself unsafe for duty,

A threat to his own nation's need;

Remembering those core values lost,

As he shot himself, and began to bleed.

Forensics found him dead,

But found a scribbled note too;

It was soaked in blood,

But the ink remained true:

"Peace is a gift no war can ever give."