This is After

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I walk the battle field after the war is over
Earth churned into mud, grass trampled

Where are the bodies?

Spears stick up from the ground in places
Tattered flags still flapping even without wind

Where is the blood?

Ruined tents lay on their sides, collapsed, poles in splinters,
Jagged edges sticking through the canvas

Where is the sound?


That's what it feels like to wake up whole
That's what it feels like after you work on yourself, and win

What did I win?
I won nothing
No name
No battle

How do I know the wars I've fought meant anything at all?
Where are the scars to prove I lived?
What do I fill all this space up with?
Who am I now?

Some people say that's where hope lives
In the nothingness between

I've never met hope there

Known her only everything was on the bathroom floor

This is after

And nothing lives here

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