The Long Way Back: Spoken word

Everyday I have to wake up and reinvent my mind, like spent brass on the tile. Taking the burden of a lost soul and letting it fall to the floor.. because these shoulders are tired and I cant bear the weight anymore.

I know it’s not my problem truth be told , but if you understood these boots I was expected to fill you would know the pressure I hold.

I didn’t just carry that casket and that was the end, I have held that weight in my heart again and again. I can’t just go peacefully in this night. Have to much tied into this life.

My heart has been torn in so many directions, not sure what the truth is anymore in my reflection.

Is it sad when you can’t recognize yourself? Look at your face and all you see is someone else?

I have lived a majority of my day, thinking… was i always supposed to end this way?

Was I always going to be in this pain? Was I supposed to teeter on the sane and insane?

Held guilt for so many years, why was it I that had to see his family in tears.

Handing them the gold star with grief. They look at me like their child’s accomplice….soul thief.

Now we battle with conflicts of self and where we stand. We are losing ourselves by our own hand.

That hand that feeds the magazine, the hand that holds the weapon… Which shoots the enemy.

Hands and fingers made to touch and feel, but instead turned on ourselves for our own lives to steal.

Stop reaching for that escape. You should be reaching for that open door of community. You should be letting your brothers in, and asking for immunity

You see every time I see another person who decided to take the wrong door… its another battle lost in the big picture of war.

We fought, but now we continue to fight for life. We fight out of love of each other, for love of ourselves and significant other.

I have cried myself to sleep when no ones looking… I am man enough to say, I need help and I am not joking

I lost myself, and everything that was me.
So I became alone… caged in a savage world, I became angry.

I have been there… in a hole so dark no night vision or flash could help me find my path.

I have burned my self alive, from the inside out… alcohol, pain killers, numbing self doubt. I submit the prescriptions I know I don’t need… but if the Doctor says so, who am I to dis-believe?

It’s like I’m two people, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde… what you see during daylight, isn’t the man I am at night.

Slurs of an alcohol fueled slumber. I can still feel it creeping in a blink of an eye…

When I turn to my friends, I have lost count, and lost hope. Funny thing is they are in the same boat. We say cheers to the fallen, for sacrifice made… we all know the price, we know what’s been paid.

We are in the same place, we lost a piece of our puzzle. Still trying to get it find it… forever in struggle.

Sometimes I feel I’m pulled in two seperate directions… one minute firmly on feet, and the next in depression.

I am always two steps from destroying the core… I feel some nights, the best part of me was lost in war.

Would they be acting the way that I am? Living with life, so ready to give in. I can’t believe they would take this so lightly. This fight is not over, it’s daily and nightly.

Being light infantry wasn’t just an MOS anymore… My first battle is getting my feet on the floor.

Quick to the pain killers, just to gather my vision… will I make it through today, will I survive this mission?

What made me this way? What caused this corruption? I was such a peaceful child growing up. Now I am struggling just not to self destruct.

Don’t think I haven’t been there before… in the dark and alone..looking for that exit door. I can’t tell you why I didn’t choose that chance. My destiny simply isn’t ready to done with this dance.

But when it’s dark as night and I can’t see the light. I remember… this my book, and I’ll continue to fight. The last chapter in this life, it’s mine to write…

Sometimes I feel I’m already halfway in the afterlife, so I call on those that have walked the same roads, delt with the same fight.

Those exposed to what most could never understand… the trials of war, the trials of man. We stand together to conquer the fear. To soldier the weather, … can the weather stop a soldier that’s come back from days that were colder then anyone has ever seen?

I had to intervene, because I awoke from a dream… one of you struggling with the demons of war. I know what you feel, I’ve been there before… I know you have my back, and I have yours.