Do You Really Know War? Poem by Cynthia Buhain-baello

Do you know
What it's like over there?
First there's the searing heat
And the blinding sand winds blow,
Your cracked lips cry
For water...from where it comes
You don't know.

Do you know what it's
Really, really like?
To not have a few hours sleep?
To keep your mind and ears
Awake till your focus, you can't keep?

Do you know how it is
To hear cries of pain
To the sounds of consuming explosions
The deafening terrors
Can make anyone insane
Unable to take such inhuman condition?

Do you know what it's like
To lose friends all around you
And never validate the vague reason why
Blood, burned bodies
Lost limbs and skin lesions
Blown up brains and a sightless eye?
Tell me how can anyone even smile
In that place
Where Death
Walks the miles?

Do you really know
War?