Dying Arms Poem by Roxanna Ackerman

Open the door
Run up the trench
March across the field as shells fly
Feel the barbwire beneath your feet
Watch the smoke erupt ahead
See the men fall behind you

Drop to the floor
Disobey your superiors
Fight to survive
Pull yourself along
Rifle aimed to deaths jaws
Look around at your fallen comrades
And realise it's true

Watch the enemy come across the field, shells hitting and bullets flying
But why call them the enemy?
In another time
Another place
You may have met
In better face
But here, today
One of You will die

You can see it in his eyes
He's thinking it too
Its gone on too long
Why keep it up?
Your family is back home, dreading your fate
His family is at his home, fretting his destiny
He points the barrel of his rifle at you
He loads the chamber
You hear the click
You hear the whimper as he prepares to shoot

You look around it his peers
They look at him with distaste
His hesitancy could lose them the battle
But they are thinking it too

And it will happen to another tommorow.
It will happen in another war.
But why?

You are outnumbered,
Outgunned,
Tired,
Exhausted.

You feel a grip around your hand, the sharp pain of an infected wound pounding against the grit.
You look down as your comrade crawls up besides you
You never got along
Never spoke
Never knew eachother
Yet there you were in the end, together as deaths door

We rise together.
Stand and fight together.
We cry together.
We die together.

We are brothers in arms.