dear soldier,
the leaves are dying,
plunging themselves off of treetops,
committing autumnal suicide.
October blues are meddling with
my brainwaves as scarecrows
hold hands along a picket fence,
smiling at the sun,
because that’s all they know how to do.
you are like a scarecrow;
sitting in a foreign army barrack
with hands that used to be tender
but now know the right way to hold
a gun and kill another human being
with only your fingertips.
and I cry because this world isn’t
cut out for this kind of fragility.
thank you for doing what I would
never be able to do.
sincerely,
an american girl
dear nineteen year old boy,
you would never listen if I
told you this.
but I’ve seen the way your
lips crinkle at the corners
when I kiss your forehead
every morning.
and how when you were
younger, you used to trip over
unstable feet and crawl around
on the ground pretending that
you were a lion, so courageous,
and not even the tiniest bit afraid
of the vicious german sheppard
that lived next door.
I miss those wild cat days;
where you didn’t know how to
march in a straight line and the
nights where I didn’t have to
get down on arthritic knees and pray
to a god I haven’t spoken to
in over thirty years.
But I need someone to look out for you
since I can’t be there.
you make me so proud.
love you always,
mom
dear my best friend,
I look up to you, you know.
I admire the way you always
held your puppy, held yourself,
held me when I needed someone
to fall back on.
everything has changed;
the skeletons in my closet
are crumbling to sawdust and
I wonder how different we will
both be three years from now.
you have never failed me and I
envy the strength that pours from
your shoulders and spinal cord;
I miss your copycat eyes and
those tuesday morning telephone calls
and how I swam around the
wheels and cogs of your brain
because you kept me safe up there.
but this is your candyland
and I know that you haven’t
left me in the ways that matter most.
I love you, you know.
come home to me safe.
love,
someone who will never stop waiting for you
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