Of Love and War
I.
I don’t remember the last time that we got mail,
or which stained cot or shithole that I was in
when I opened it
and read about your summer days sun bathing
in your new 4th of July two-piece out at the lake
with Eric and Tori. Or about how softly your
mother cried, lifting and dabbing behind her glasses
with a wadded up tissue, while helping you pick
out new linens for your hour-and-a-half away
dorm room bed.
But now I sift through this pile of white and
mixed colored letters, moving my family’s
and friend’s aside, and stacking yours on top by
the date that you carefully wrote on the outside
seal.And, one dirty thumb print after another,
I open them all chapter by chapter.
“Jake, I love you.”
“Jake, I love you.”
“Jake, I love you.”
I kiss them all, one by one, fading away into
winter thoughts of us and the last time that
we touched. And still visible splashes of your
perfume reminding me of your neck, when
I would press my tongue and lips against it,
making you bump up with chills, just as
these thoughts of you do to me now.
I lie down damp and hope for dreams of us,
like that summer before, on a fuzzy blanket in
the sharp grassed field beside my father’s house,
where romance was slapping mosquitos from
each other’s backs under partially cloudy stars
and stirrings in the woods beside us. We made it
quick, but lasting.
II.
“Seventeen days until I see you… until I touch
you, until I kiss you.”
My voice quietly hiding the excitement in a
room full of hardened Marines murmuring
trying to hold back tears on phone calls home.
But your voice is not as I remember it from a
month ago. Your “I miss you’s and I love you’s”
sound shaky, barren, and empty. I pass it off as
nerves and swallow down a warm meal to fill
the pit in my stomach.
For the first time since nine months away, I fear
that I don’t know you.
III.
I’ve laid restless for hours beside your steady,
easy breathing. And mine is sharp, shallow, and
forced from gritted teeth. Between you and the
ceiling, I can’t stare anywhere else. The hugs
from earlier have worn off, and the kisses
weren’t as warming as I had imagined.
You’re bra is still fastened, your levi’s are
buttoned, and the long sleeved shirt I offered
you to wear, is sitting on the chair beside us. You
are wearing what you wore to my brother’s
football game, and I’ve spent hours
trying to figure out why.
IV.
Eventually, tomorrow morning will come, though
sleep will not. And you will finally tell me about
Stephen, with a phh, from school.
And I will mock him, threaten to kill him, to
gut him with my K-bar knife,
to gouge out his eyeballs and skull fuck his corpse.
You will cry; and I will rage.
I will scream out in a voice that I thought I buried
just weeks ago, and it will scare me to the core.
You will shed believable tears down your flush
cheeks, and I will still want to hold you. I will still
want to love you; though, I can’t.
**Published in The Deadly Writers Patrol Issue 12