• I fit in now.

    I stare like o' so many children I've told

    'It's really just better to ask.'

    But I know how this happened.

    The stories differ

    but the source is the same

    Gunshot wound

    I.E.D.

    Car flipped

    Chopper downed

    Fire

    Fights

    Jihad

    I fit in now



    I blend in now

    and stick out

    like the new found christian

    in the cancer camp

    I lack their nobility

    Inherent at the loss

    It could be worse

    trust me

    I'm lying

    I speak from experience

    It

    wills

    worse

    things

    to come



    I'm the wise one now

    warning these older naive

    veterans of two decades or less

    when it'll hit them

    giving half a hug

    trying to

    grab the quarter empty cup

    that's ready to boil over

    the little sayings that now sting

    the

    jokes they'll invent

    just to prove

    steam doesn't burn



    You have to have 'Arms' to be in the Army

    There's a plural there

    I'd die

    so they wouldn't have to live

    like



    'Special Operations'

    make me cannon fodder

    I'd die

    as long as they don't get eaten

    like



    But people are holding doors open now

    some look at me proudly

    most still stare

    or pretend to look away

    but no one asks

    how



    I'm the right age, in the right area

    so I must be a 'living' casualties of war

    The only battle I've lost

    is the one for identity

    smiling politely as I'm pushed away

    in with the lucky safe

    if not altogether

    whole or healthy

    for them

    I still want to go waltzing across the quay.


    (thank you for reading, comment if you please))