Casualties (working it out still)

We are all casualties of time and war.
Some of us hide our scars,
Others turn them into tattoos and worship every mark.
The clock ticks and I only hear chains rattle.
Each day another minute is really taken away and every freedom
only appears to be freer when it is becoming more fabricated and fictional.
I can smell the smoke and see it before it rises over the horizon,
but I will never know who lit the fire.


We are casualties, who are really ghost soldiers,
fighters with imaginary swords,
dying for our blinded fathers
who have taught us to see too much color
and killing for the words that have been marked on us
before we were anything to mark.

We are casualties, I told God.
And I knew since I was just a small child
that with time I would only bear more scars
and have deeper wounds that would never close.
That I would look into the eyes of strangers
and first be afraid. And next feel sorrow.
That I could hold out my hand, but know it could be cut off.
And that love wears out, but pain only incubates and regenerates.
That I will cry inside until I die for the false belief that there can be unity
and peace between two souls.

We are casualties underneath the armor.
Our eyes look innocent, but if you look close
they are broken up with little cracks and imperfections that let light in.
These eyes are blinded by many skies.
Blinded by God’s words that they never heard themselves, but were given as hand-me-downs.
And blinded again by the distant screams of the wounded who seek revenge from lives before.
We blindly walk on a planet that is stale and has hardened,
sealing in tears, blood, and other fossilized ammunition.

We are casualties and we continue to walk among the wreckage.
We invent what we can only conceptualize as beautiful,
painting beauty mostly at the expense of another.
There is a war always already waging even when we think we're cleaning up.
Yet we hold on tight to things that allow us to sleep at night
As we dream in worlds that don’t exist.