Lament of a Warrior
I glance at my hands.
They are stained with blood.
Though you cannot see the stains,
I know they are there
Because every final plea,
Every prayer, every beg of forgiveness
Is permanently etched into my brain.
Why hadn't it been me?
If I had been the one to die,
None of this would have happened.
I have killed more people
Than I have aged in years.
I almost murdered my best friend,
And destroyed two cities.
Men, women and children all died at my hand.
War controls you.
It turns us all into feeling less machines,
Destroying all that we see.
I can feel that it's coming,
I can see it all end; I can hear my friend,
Telling me it's all over, and things will go back to normal.
Well, I'm sorry; they wont.
I can never give back the lives I took.
I can never go back and let them live.
It's over.
When I go to sleep at night,
I see their faces, I hear their screams
Those things that haunt me and taunt me
In my dreams.
I glance at my hands.
They are stained with blood.
Though you cannot see the stains,
I know they are there
Because every blood-curdling scream,
Every cry of terror, every tear shed
Is permanently etched into my brain.
I can never restore the lives I took.
I can never replace those lost souls.
I can never remove mistakes of the past.
I can never rewind and start the thing over,
But I can remind those who don't understand
What a terrible thing war is.
Wars scare me to death.
They always have.
It isn't the loss of my life that scares me
It's the taking life from another,
And in the end
Someone dies
And someone kills
And all involved are unhappy.
Never forget what has been said here,
And understand what I say.
For the real heroes of the battlefield
Are the ones who died.