You said,
“Life is the greatest gift,
but can also be
the greatest burden.”
I heard the weight of those words,
I could feel the pain behind them.
You see,
I was never there.
I was off and lost,
derelict.
A ghost ship.
While you and your friends
fought a war on foreign soil,
I fought my demons,
and lost
again,
and again,
and again;
and then I stopped fighting.
You came back,
injuries sustained in combat,
flesh torn,
bones broken,
nerves severed.
The story of your war
stitched in scar tissue
all over your face,
chest and arms.
I heard you share your story,
and I fought down
the same feelings of inadequacy
and cowardice
that strike out at me
when I am faced
with those who gave so much;
while all I did was take,
and take,
and take,
until I could take no more.
These days,
I think we are both mostly recovered,
though I cannot even imagine
what that took for you.
Life has blessed us
and burdened us.
We are alive,
because we survived,
what tried to kill us.
Out here,
on my back deck,
on this clear November night,
I’m having a beer
and cooking steaks
and looking at the stars.
I wonder,
how many stars do you see?
Because, I see all of them.
HG – 2019
