No Exit Door

I once met a man who fought in Vietnam who now lives on the street accepting his defeat. He smokes himself into a maze and he says he’ll never talk about the things he wished he’d never seen. He has no begging bowl he doesn’t drink and he’s never stole and the biggest thing in his life is the hole he has fallen down. He scares himself half to death often with his panic and short of breath and he can never sleep without light shining on his face. He’s not sure if he believes in God even though he survived, a war that has no exit door. The nightmares keep him frightened haunted by those bodies in a pile he cannot unsee the noises the flames the screams and the pain they keep coming back driving him insane. He can’t claw back his youth he’s lost any sense of truth after he went to war fooled by lies. The one thing he learned as he watched people burn is that everybody cries but some do this in silence crushed by the violence, of a war that has no exit door. He has no sense of smell apart from the scent of charring skin and he sees no colours other than blood red keeping the carnage inside his head. A general asked for his thoughts on the battle he said sir we are nothing but cattle and you’re in charge of the herd and life is too absurd to be taken seriously which is why we’re all bound for hell.We have men who enjoy being thugs we have crazies full of drugs we have no moral borders we act on orders from men who mount on pedestals to boast of a body count and praise the slaughter that has eaten our souls core, in a war that has no exit door.

When he returned home he made himself alone after he visited the graves of those who weren’t saved and wished he was sharing the same soil because life on earth doesn’t seem worth fighting for if those who run our lives keep sending us to a war that has no exit door.

©JMcN2016