a modern war to the tune of repetition

A tribute to my dad, who missed out on so much of me and my siblings lives serving in the marines.

i

here he's green baby this sweet kid of american goodness this run-on sentence of good family good life good wife she ain't his wife yet but she's gonna be he's gonna marry that girl that blue-eyed cheerleader who broke her arm on a pyramid he loves his dad as much as he can which is to say enough to make his heart an ampersand he leaves him and everything else cause this place is suffocating him man cause this place ain't a place it ain't a home think of the cell where he can reach out his arms and touch the church and the road the two ends of his prison he's gotta go go go go go go don a brown-green suit and get the f**k out he's gonna be a hero he's gonna do some goddamn good for once never mind if his sweetheart gets down on both knees til she got bruises never mind if his momma's hair turns grey never mind if his dad prays for the first time since he couldn't die. he loves them in the only way he knows how. he knows how to follow, knows just how to breathe when killing a person how you gotta exhale when you let the bullet go you can't just clench your fist on it and let it sink in skin, when you shoot you aim right for the bone like his dad taught him cause the heart's just too soft to bother with. on the phone he can remember saying it's like shooting deer, baby, 'cept these ones scream when they go down.

ii

Today. Today the sun rose. Today they lost too many good. Good men. Boys. Today. They killed. A kid picked up a gun. Doesn't matter. Which side he was on it could. Be him. He might be. The kid. He might've shot that. Kid. Kid. Kid. Didn't know so much blood. Could be. Could be. In one person. In. Kid. GET THE F**K. F**K. F**K. DOWN DOWN DOWN DOWN. Sounds. Too much like. The guns. Everyone's yelling everyone's. GET THE F**K. F**K. Truth is they never finished. That sentence. Truth is he calls. His sweetheart. His girl. His pyramid-toppling lover. Been doing this. So long he keeps forgetting. Which way the sun will. Rise. Up. Goes up up up up up. No matter. 1,000 days. Today. He's got that. He has a son. He's never met. What's he going. To meet? He feels this. To the very. Core. Core. Core. His son. Kid. GET THE F**K. F**K. F**K, his kid. He wants. He wants to go. Home. Home. Home.

iii

the war folds into him
the way cold does, a chill
an ache he can't
shake. or �" not right.
this is electric, a crackling
right to the core of him
to the marrow of his bones,
a quiet hum.
a chill.
he remembers the bullets
when the balloons burst,
shrivelled plastic shrapnel
sharpie smiles,
the fireworks. the light,
the uncontrollable colour &
anything unconfined is a weapon.
undefined.
they don't know this. they're not scared
of this ritual of bursting �" he knows better.
they should be.
sometimes his children aren't playing
they're killing you know baby one day all our kids
are gonna end up on a battlefield like it or not
the dog is mauling his son. the dog is
the dog
is.
war dogs, that's
what you become when you join that's
how you stay when you leave,
a washed up war dog
snapping at its own heels. got his tail in
the mouth. gon rip that s**t off.
leave a limb dangling between his teeth.
he has so many ghosts in his throat somedays
it feels like all he's ever doing is choking
them down to his belly, wait till they seep through
wait til he can sleep
without a bodiless man condemning him
crossing him red, he waits for the
blind kid to come home, waits for the
jigsaw of his friend to settle, for the gun
to turn back into a boy. he kisses
his nineteen year old self on the brow
with all the tenderness he can muster and says
baby you so green, when they serve you up
on that plate, you gon be up an'
kickin', you gon be a meal
that detonates
digesting.