1026088's blog: "retards"

Eli came back from Iraq and tattooed a teddy bear onto the inside of his wrist above that a medic with an IV bag above that an angel but Eli says the teddy bear won’t live and I know I don’t know but I say “I know” because Eli’s only 24 and I’ve never seen eyes further away from childhood than his eyes old with a wisdom he knows I’d rather not have Eli’s mother traces a teddy bear onto my arm and says not all casualties come home in body bags and I swear I’d spend the rest of my life writing nothing but the word light at the end of this tunnel if I could find the fucking tunnel I’d write nothing but white flags somebody pray for the soldiers somebody pray for what’s lost somebody pray for the mailbox that holds the official letters to the mothers, fathers, sisters and little brothers of Micheal 19...Steven 21...John 33 how ironic that their deaths sound like bible verses the hearse is parked in the halls of the high school recruiting black brown and poor while anti-war activists outside walter reed army hospital scream 100, 000 slain… as an amputee on the third floor breathes forget-me-nots onto the window pain but can we forget what we never knew our sky is so perfectly blue its repulsive somebody tell me where god lives cause if god is truth god doesn’t live here our lies have seared the sun too hot live by there are ghosts of people who are still alive touting M16s with trembling hands while we dream ourselves stars on Survivor another missile sets fire to the face in the locket of a mother who’s son needed money for college and she swears she can feel his photograph burn how many wars will it take us to learn that only the dead return the rest remain forever caught between worlds of shrapnel shatters body of three year old girl! and… welcome to McDonalds can I take your order? the mortar of sanity crumbling stumbling back home to a home that will never be home again Eli doesn’t know if he can ever write a poem again 1 third of the homeless men in this country are veterans and we have the nerve to “Support Our Troops” with pretty yellow ribbons while giving nothing but dirty looks to their outstretched hands tell me what land of the free sets free its 18 year old kids into greedy war zones hones them like missiles then returns their bones in the middle of the night so know one can see their deaths swept beneath the carpet and hidden like dirt their lives promises we never kept Jeff Lacey came back from Iraq and hung himself in his parents basement with a garden hose the night before he died he spent forty five minutes on his fathers lap rocking like a baby rocking like daddy save me! and don’t think for a minute he too isn’t collateral damage in the mansions of Washington they are watching them burn and hoarding the water no senators sons are being sent out to slaughter no president’s daughters are licking ashes from their lips or dreaming up ropes to wrap around their necks in case they ever make it home alive our eyes are closed america there are souls in the boots of the soldiers america fuck your yellow ribbon you want to support our troops bring them home and hold them tight when they get here