nights stagger.

The night isn’t dark; the world is dark. Stay with me a little longer.

maybe an injury even / maybe even just a leg / asleep / have you ever tried to shake  / your body / into obedience / tried to shake yourself / back into it

i left home a child      and came back to trumpeting heralds                               and parades in my name                                and historybooks with my face on the front cover––      a hero.    i left home a child      and came back a hero      but no one seems to see that a hero is a warrior      and a warrior must first be born of war.   and i see too many children         chasing after my footprints with joy         wearing armour like blankets and helmets like crowns         laughing with eyes bright as the faraway glint of sniper scopes.   and i do not want to leave a legacy      of bloodstains and bruised knuckles      and teeth clenched around burning bullets.   and i do not want anyone else to leave home a child      and come back a hero tasting blood on every passing wind and regret on every shaking breath.   but i left home a child      and came back a hero      and only a hero––   ––not the historian who writes the legends      or the god who writes the stars  and i do not have it in me to stop the next warrior      who leaves home a child           and comes back a hero.

You are alive, I whisper to myself, therefore something in you listens.

dead people need us to remember them, even if it eats us, even if all we can do is say i’m sorry until it is as meaningless as air.