The Camouflaged Boy

The Camouflaged Boy

War:(noun) An armed struggle especially between nations.

Did blood pump your veins, skin pale to a sickly shade?
Fragile youth already sold,
Just a boy called to fight some war.
Cancel the next few years
Photos in your pocket, talisman around your neck,
Mother weeping, "Son, you're my light"
Proud Father, "Son, stand and fight".

Was it train or plane that took you to Hell?
Suffocating heat,
Unbearable smell.
Amongst hundreds of blank, faceless men.
Did you hear wails of dying?
Hear orders snapping at your feet?
Feel the pounding of your heart
As it slammed against your ribs?
Whimper at night for solace?
Feel you had sold your soul?
All these victims of war
Sucked into a vacuum,
With stains upon your hands
How many eyes did you look in to
When you saw the dying man?

No room for error,
Squat, stand, crouch.
Be still.
Or strike.
But do not crumble and die.
Camouflage the frightened boy inside
An adam’s apple you could barely hide,
They crippled you, forced you to be a man,
You learnt to kill with just your bare hands.
Oh powerful warrior,
What a lonely road to vicious victory,
Relentless you are,
Abhorrence became still life
Inside all was ugly,
Deathly weary weapons blended into your back.

Friends fell at your side,
You cradled their broken heads
Whispering
Until they died.
You buried their remains
When the land was quiet,
Not a tear shed from your eye.
In nightmares they visited you,
Pleading to go home,
At daybreak you stood alone.

You came home a man, Daddy.
But at what price?
It never stopped,
This raging struggle eating you alive.
I am the legacy of that dying boy inside
So now, many years later, it is for us I cry.