A Warrior’s Journal
by Odin Roark

They will be...

We do these kinds of things,
can't be helped,
imagination Band Aids some call them.

I know,
we just do,
fingers wrapped ‘round cold steel,
it's then,
it's now,
it’s them,
it’s me,
differences slight.

Like playing marbles.

Tripod-cradled taws and steelies,
"Bombers" "Pots,"
"shooters" all,
aim straight,
roll in the hole.

You wait a long time.

You know there's more to touching,
for you'll cradle other steel,
formidable kind,
you know,
you hope,
you're a kid, for Christ sake.

You'll do your best,
find other holes,
aim and shoot,
some you dig,
some dug for you,
explosions know little of discretion.

Hell...

They say beginnings never end,
always renewing,
like dawn's edge ever changing,
reds, oranges, yellow,
lying on your back,
you knew those once,
before the night never ended.

Smell the smell now,
it's all the same,
keeping life going,
safe,
clean,
sterilized,
that's what hospitals do.

You know what's coming.

You just do.

The swoosh of auto-doors,
distant sirens,
always the sirens,
always the arrivals,
always,
here,
there,
anywhere.

Like now…

Drinking my coffee.

Another first day of another endless week,
month,
year,
so familiar,
heavy life pushing through iron air
waiting to break into freedom.

We dream,
just like you,
to see a sunrise again,
to know a candle still glances.

But now…

Just footsteps
coming at me.

A walk I've known.

Bethesda recall,
remembrance when sight
remained at the ready,
absorbing fetid squalor,
half-naked Afghan children,
barbarous patience
staring wildly as we passed,
elder's eyes theirs,
we but shooters innocent,
until…

Too many buried IEDs

I adjust,
footsteps almost here.

Sitting seems forever,
this wheeled-life for now,
robotic legs in the works,
back there,
back in Bethesda prep.,
coming,
coming soon.

But, for now…

Standard issue dark glasses
covering eyes that once were.

Footsteps stop.

Standing now.

In front of me.

Me.

My hands are taken.
"Lt. Baygen...it's a boy."

"Shall we...your wife is waiting"

Digits and determination grip the wheelchair steel
following another day’s fragments,
forging from yesterday's pieces,
into tomorrow’s masterpiece.

A doctor has delivered creativity
from beyond.

Rolling my hands atop the chrome and rubber wheels,
my imagination remains the Band Aids of survival.

How shiny it all is,
they tell me.
This transport,
this evidence,
reality’s today…
somewhere.

Will birth let me cradle him?

Will he look at me with hatred or compassion?

Will he eventually know we have made him
into what he might become?

So many fragments she’s absorbed,
evolving from a hell that is now a
warrior’s journal of love.