Warrior Not

Sand Slipping underfoot.

Heat not normal.

Everything burnt and as far as the eyes can see only the dull repetition of dunes.

It gets in your eyes and into every crevasse of fabric, of flesh.

It crunches between your teeth, the sensation shocks you back to the present.

To Life.

Any sensation besides this baking sun is welcomed.

Single file we march.

In silence.

The walking warrior edge ready for a fight.

The others like me try to hold our bowls in place.

With each slippery step our destiny comes closer.

So far away from home.

What a strange place to meet one’s destiny.

Here is where it will be in this desert.

This desert storm.

Outside myself, I feel a knocking.

It’s my heart.

Beating way too fast and way too loud.

My flesh crawls.

These tiny pebbles of grit grind away at my soul.

Breaking me down.

Flaking my flesh to earth.

Not dead yet and already mother nature is pulling me back to her womb.

What is fear compounded by fear?

Flesh frightened off the bone.

Does a coward know when to run?

Or is he always on the run?

Inside I’m running.

I’m running as fast as I can.

I’m getting my self as far away from here as humanly possible.

Illusions.

Desert illusions, too much heat on the brain.

I’m still here, still marching.

Salt dripping into the edges of my eyes.

Sweat falling in tears rolling out.

Blood will be next, myself or the other.

Blood will come.

Blue-red life pumping out of babes bodies.

We young men, barely not boys.

Who know so little of life prepare to give our own.

Not even full grown.

Boys bodies stop growing at 25.

Me, I’m 19.

Prepared to give my life.

I don’t want to give my life.

I want to live my life.

It is my life.

The only one I get and I’m potentially giving it up.

And if I live what will I look like inside?

What will I feel after killing then living?

Wasn't I just crying, being comforted in my mothers arms.

She held me with such pride on graduation day.

Wasn’t I just a boy running through the streets.

Going nowhere happy to be lost.

I’m not a man yet.

I’m not a warrior.

I’m just this boy whose proportions grew to man size.

But I’ don’t feel like a man.

Will killing an other make me a man?

If I take an others life do I become instant man?

I don’t want to kill.

I don’t want to take what is not mine for the taking.

God this is so fucked up.

I don’t want to give mine and I don’t want to take an others life.

This is hell.

I’m in hell.

Maybe my heart will beat so hard and fast that it will pop out of my chest.

Then I won’t have to kill or be killed.

What I really want is sleep.

I want to practice dreaming.

Dream my way out of this storm of desert.