7 Years Poem by Alice Nguyen

I woke up this morning
With my head heavy as stone.
Around me black smoke rising,
On the ground scattered blood and bones.

The sky was clear and fine
Here in this burnt down battlefield!
A note came, it was mine
It’s from the one whom my heart had yield.

“Dear John, seven years since that day
The day you left to follow the fatherland’s call.
Your papa was sick and passed away
I have to move on, you shouldn’t appall! ”

The message was short, but it took me quite a while
For my brain was used to fire, bullets and guns
But when it reached me, my lips parted a smile
For what else can I do when my reading is done?

I started to giggle and laughing soon afterwards
A wild laugh of a man who’d got nothing to lose.
Bitterly I laughed for the seven years had flown like birds
Burning down houses and homes, was I the one to choose?

The laughter soon died away and tears filled my eyes
I could feel myself suffocating, I longed for a place to hide.
I groaned and cried, a soldier’s cries
Beside lost and fire, what else does the future lie?