Intermission

War Torn (part 3)

He sits on the porch
and rocks back and forth.
What a fool he had been
to think that this war
could be over.

Just for the fact that
it had been won;
He'd returned to his life,
to his wife and his home.

Never before
had he felt so alone.

At least in the trenches
all present had known,
the fear and the dread.
The sheer taste of hope.
The terror that each man felt
was their own; and yet
had been shared by everyone there.

He'd need only one glance
into any mans soul.
He would look into eyes
and instantly know, that here
stood a comrade, a partner, a friend.
He'd needed it, fed off it, grown to depend
on the sense of belonging,
the sense of connection.
Brotherly understanding.
Unspoken affection.

And here,

Here had become
no more than a dream.
No more than a reason
to do it again.

And she.

She had become
no more than a whisper,
A faint fading memory,
unreal and so distant.

How can it be
That after the
Hell!
Of what he had suffered.
He could now only
Wish to be back there?

No.

Not there
Not exactly.

But

Back with the men,
the men who just knew,
leaving no need to tell.

But she needs to hear
why so much has changed.
Why it cant simply be
how it used to again.

_______

She sits in the kitchen
and watches him rocking.
With each little movement
he makes the soft knocking,
HAMMERS in her brain.

The rejection had left her
empty and numb.
The years of pained conviction
she had overcome!

And for what???

Though calm on the surface,
she screamed underneath.
And the veneer was cracking.
She wanted to slap him,
and SCREAM into his face.

Instead she allowed him
to slip from her hands.
In silence accepting she
could never understand,

even a shred
of what he'd
been through.

Their love had been
defeated by war.
She had waited so long,
she was simply unsure,
if she had enough hope left

to wait anymore..