Bits and Pieces of a Damaged But Not Broken Mind

Default

I may be alive, but only by default.
For I haven't fought in the longest time. I have been standing, or swaying, or falling, for whichever most convenient in the moment.

Because I make no move, not an ounce of effort, to make it to safety.
I could crawl, or beg, or feign it till I make it to under the cover; yet I have no energy nor the desire to try.

So all I have done is remained alive, at just the same coincidence as default. Gunfire has whizzed passed me, grazed me, held me at point blank, but decided each time to let me go with the torture of having to live.

I may yell at them to just take my miserable life, but the gunners just laugh mirthlessly and walk by, taking care to shoot me in the shoulder as they pass.

I scream from the pain, but it only registers once I acknowledge my continuous existence.

For that causes most pain of all.

The inevitable is so bitter. So what can I do, but pretend to be a soldier.
How else will my comrades believe that my death was a mere "accident", if not to act as if my sacrifice was for better purpose then complete selfishness, as it was.