The Warrior's Real Injury Poem by Joshua Thomas

No river wide, nor mountain can scale
The way that her face, with fear, turned pale
My corpse lying there in the sun
As flies started their rancid fun

Bleeding from war, fallen but standing tall
Hates is better than no world at all.
How could I live, the way I did?
Injured, disgraced, and off the grid?

Proud to die for my country
Proud to fight for liberty
In the end, I failed to protect it
Instead fell bleeding in a sand pit.

Saved. A miracle they said.
Cheated. I should have been dead.
Never to walk again, never to run
So I shot myself, with my.45 gun

Why should I live?
What could I give?
Except for shame,
To my family’s name.

Death was quick but I never did see
How my wife forever cried for me.
She was pregnant, I had a son.
A surprise. What have I done?

Was a wheelchair worth the pain I dealt,
To myself and others, the way I felt?
So many people mourned, more than I knew.
“Why did you do it? ” She screamed. “Take me too! ”

My soul cried just to hold her again.
And live my life like it was back then
But to death I went to shorten my fate,
Another lesson learned far too late.