Revolution: Poetry collection

For Your Country

For Your Country

Give me your young and strong,  

      Old and weak,  

     Lost and unwanted.  

     Give me your terrorizers and pacifiers.  

Give me everything you are  

     And everything you are not.  

I will shelter you,  

     Raise you,  

     Feed you nationalism when you are hungry,  

     Give you loyalty when you are thirsty.  

I will protect you,  

    Save you,  

    Guide you,  

    And sometimes mislead you.  

I will break you,  

    Mold you,  

    Make you into Soldiers 

I will be your friend,  

     Your mother,  

     Your family without the blood ties.  

I don't need blood to tie you to me;  

     Because you fed from me,  

     Drank from me.  

     And I was the one who sheltered you,  

     Listened to you when you cried yourself to sleep,  

      And accepted you when no one else did.  

So give me your life,  

    Your soul,  

    Your last breath as payment.

When I call for you,  

     You will come running;  

     Defending me from my enemies,  

    Even if they were your friends.  

You will march,  

    Raise your gun,  

    Yell out my name  

    Before you kill anyone who stands in my way.  

     No matter how young or old,  

     Rich or poor,  

     Stranger or brother.  

When you kill in my name,  

    I will make them call out yours on your home street,  

    Let them make you into a hero,  

    A soldier that killed for me,  

    That protected them.  

And when you die at my hands,  

     At your funeral,  

     They will carry your casket, covered with my flag,  

      Bugles and trumpets and rifles will sing.  

     As your real mother weeps for you,  

     I will lie to reassure her that you felt no pain.  

     As they bury you in me, 

     I would already have your replacement killing for me.

But when I don't need you anymore,  

    I will send you home in civilian cloth,  

    To people who can't understand what I did to you.  

    I will reassure them that you're ok,  

    That your physical wounds will heal,  

    And that your mental scares aren't real.  

    Then I will scam you out of your soldier's benefits,  

    Then tuck you in every night,

     Before I leave you to the ghosts. 

     And when you can't take it anymore,  

     I will help write your note.  

But in the end, I raised you whispering my name,  

    And I will make sure you die shouting for me,  

Me,  

     What you called your home,  

     Your commander,  

    Your loyal companion,  

    Your mother,  

    Your country,  

    What made you a hero,

    A hero of War,

    My faithful soldier,  

    Only at the price of bullets and body bags, and a lifetime of haunting.

-Nadin El.