The Education System

Cemetery

A cold embrace of moist filth made mire by bodily fluids

not meant to leave veins, another pattern of new faces (khaki boots

and laces) with days to live,

we enter the festering arms of a barricade scented of gas, constructed of corpses.

 

A boy, older than he looks but younger than anyone

would dare to think, name lost in the

churning waters of urine and infected blood, hair yellow, wet and putrid in his eyes

from oil seeping from mouths of carrion

on every side.

                                The tears are still fresh on his baby face.

 

Fingers no longer flutter, nervous on the arms of his girl back home,

gore burnt black in the ovens of slaughter, the expression on his face remains reminiscent of

blinding pain,

eyes bloodied beneath charred skin, tight and wrenched apart by ravenous rats as eager as grasping harpies; as eager as the

higher-ups who comb through lists for names to send Over The Top; he died wondering if

the generals sleep easy knowing he’ll never breathe again?

It’s a heavy weight, his to bear,

another battered broken carcass thrown beneath bags of sand,

a defence to share.

                                I must stay strong.

 

Volleys of water and shrapnel form sludge that drags forgotten life deep into the nadirs of a distraught field,

lifeless husks sleeping in eternal nightmare in make-shift graves, never to be found and still,

still recruits pass by his unseeing eyes,

repairing the blockade with filth in their teeth and waiting, watching.

I’m clutching at a rifle and helmet that won’t save me,

waiting

for a noise from across the way.

 

Holes in the ground opulent with sweet sickening smoke and rotten flesh held tight by Lady Death,

it clings to our clothes, she’ll never let go.

A claim staked upon those of us with hours left to live,

there’s a ticker above my head that counts toward the second that will be marked, forgotten

with a sharp crack and splash of red.

                                I must stay strong.

 

My flesh rots beneath my fingertips, white meat rotten and ripping, shredding under my fingernails

as my eyes from my face liquesce,

trapped in this place beneath the dead’s weight.

My throat empty as I choke on the words I’ve forgotten how to say,

‘Help me.

Please help me.

Please make it go away.’

 

 

LOLDISCLAIMER, this one was written for a Literature SAC. Ignore the spacing, it shits me too.