Once I Was a Hardened Soldier
Imagine a grey world
Where it only rains ash
The clouds are black
And the ground is like powder
The winds stir up an aftermath
Of victory and of power
Yet...only defeat remains
Only those strong enough
To sail those winds of change
But look out now
Through the windows of your mind
And you'll see blue skies
With yellow sunshine
You'll see such a world doesn't exist
There is no black and no grey
There are no winds sailing me
Pushing me to a change
Only my mind has a fog of war
And I'm stuck inside
A skeleton key around my neck
And echos of lost goodbyes
I sift through the debris
And I find myself
Bloodied and bruised
Yet still fighting, Breathing
Telling myself to pull through
I'll never surrender
I'll never quit
Once I was a hardened soldier
But now where do I fit?
I can't let go of those lost
And appease the ghosts I live with...
Bury these faces that haunt my eyes
And sing me memories for a night lullaby
Does that mean I'm weak?
And drown in the water underneath the bridge?
Am I unfit to wear the honor?
Bearing a weight
Of the regret from the things I did...
Or didn't do
What I could have
Should of done
Is being blinded by the ash
From the black clouds hiding my yellow sun
Once I was a hardened soldier
About this poem
I wrote this in remembrance of those I saw killed in Iraq between 2003 and 2004. Specifically, November 2, 2003, when I was the medic assigned to treat and recover soldiers from a Chinook helicopter that was shot down over Fallujah. We lost 16 that day. I tried to save them.
Written on October 14, 2021
Submitted by Nathaniel40 on February 08, 2023
Modified on April 19, 2023
- 1:29 min read
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Quick analysis:
Scheme | xaxbxb xxc xxdx xxec xxxd exxxf bgBg xxdx xxbxx fxhah B |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 1,270 |
Words | 289 |
Stanzas | 11 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 4, 4, 5, 5, 1 |
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"Once I Was a Hardened Soldier" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/151113/once-i-was-a-hardened-soldier>.
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