Things were simpler in the war.
It was kill or be killed
Your enemy was clear
He went for the throat
And you took his blood for breath like a trophy.
It covered you
Your teeth
Your fingertips—
It dried on your hands and lined your hair
And after a certain point
You stopped washing it away
Because you knew it was in your veins anyway—
And someone else’s blood would be on your lips tomorrow.
We wore it like a proud stain on our innocence
Death be damned.

But today —
The attack doesn’t want blood
It doesn’t take it.
It strikes the soul
And I can’t breathe.
I have no trophies, no enemy to cut,
No ideal to clasp till I bleed on its edges,
Nothing to fight as the walls close in
Trapping me in emptiness—
A stain of its own.

And they say to be strong
Like a soldier.
But a warrior,
He knows when to die—
Doesn’t he?