calm as chaos, clear as smoke ✓

𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘢𝘳

I could tell you what it was like,
being stranded on the front line
while a bloody war waged before me.

I could explain to you in great detail
the horrendous sounds of death and destruction,
and how the earth cries for the fallen bodies littering the ground.

I could show you explicitly
that the price we pay for our so-called freedom
is not worth the drops of blood we spill.

the truth is, I do not wish to scare you.
I do not want to reveal
the true extent of the damage inside of me,
how my organs no longer line up
with my shattered rib cage,
or how my sanity was slaughtered
and my skull no longer houses my mind.

I would rather you never find out
that every inch of my skin
is covered in nightmarish truths
that tell the brutal but honest tale
of what it is like to simply be alive

if I never allow you to see these truths,
you cannot walk away from me
with the colour of disgust in your eyes.
you cannot abandon me
while spouting lines
about the greater good.

I have ghosts trapped between my teeth
and echoes in my bloodstream,
and I can't quite rid them from my body.
I can't quite differentiate
what is real
and what is not.

but I am okay.

I swear that I am.

the war did not destroy me.

the war did not turn me
into some unrecognisable creature.

the war did not strip me of my humanity
and blackmail my sanity into deserting me.

but the enemy
inside of me
did.