Translucidity

I died for you today.
My body torn and brutalized in the name of someone’s God.
The agony of my death etched into the lifeless skin of my face.
Crimson life pooled beneath the folds of my uniform.

I died for you today.
I was your brother, father, mother, son, sister friend and lover.
My mission a lie, but I knew that when I joined.
It’s the principle I upheld to protect my clan.

I died for you today.
My child will never know me nor ever be born.
My lover will never hold me.
I am but a crumpled photograph  in cold, lonely hands.

I died for you today.
So that you will never know the pain of wanting or inhumanity.
So my government can reign supreme with morals built on fear.
So your life will live undisrupted.

I died today.
Cold, lonely and scared in some foreign land.
My name unimportant yet profoundly so.
My life insignificant but only to those that took my last breath.

When I died today.
I took a bullet maybe three.
The searing pain like a hot poker made of salt in an open wound.
I lay helpless dying, screaming as I cast off my last shot.

When I died today.
I did not think of you.
My mother, my family are all that I saw as I cried my final tear.
I was a brave soldier I fought to the end.

I died for you today in a war I did not choose.