After her searching stares,
her loving looks and angry glares,

only then did I let her see
the fury I hold inside of me,

and only then I unclenched my fist
each finger pressed against her wrist,

to let her hold my fractured heart,
each pumping vein a separate path,

to let her wipe away my tears,
each one an ocean of my fear,

the imprint of her faltering fingers,
tentative, she chose to linger

on the scar I bear inside and out,
a constant reminder of her doubt,

and the young boy, left behind,
the twisted soul that intertwined

with the man that I’ve become today,
the face of war, the price to pay.

Even though I let her in,
my frozen heart cannot begin

to pump as freely as before
and let me with emotion soar,

a trapped man I’m doomed to be,
locked in a cell without a key,

and soon she’ll find she is alone,
for my heart will be a jagged stone,

and my eyes tormented, by their sights
will have lost their flickering light,

and the fragile glimmer of my skin
concealing what I feel within

will have lost its pale shine,
a reminder of my steep decline.

They say I’m lucky to be alive,
Yet I envy those who fought and died,

they didn’t have to face the pain
of returning home again,

and viewing faces filled with shock,
at seeing the doors war has locked.

And what reward did we receive
for our gallant bravery?

None but the deafening roar of silence
and the eternal ache of absence,

for in my mind I’m still at war,
still living the horrors of before,

I still hear the echoes of their screams
when I cry out during my dreams,

and I still run, and duck my head,
when you see me turning in my bed,

from the phantom shells and mines,
by which my life was once defined.

And so she did well to come so near,
But I learnt something from my fear,

I learnt that every mine, once bestowed
Is simply waiting to explode.