War Guilt
Do I have the right to write these words,
to think these thoughts?
They are not my emotions,
simply ones I have read,
stories I have heard.
I do not feel
the cold of the sand,
the pain of the bullet,
the guilt of the dead.
I do not think
I have the right to pretend I have.
They say it is fiction, that lying
is alright,
but those words don’t pour
from the lips of the ones risking
their lives every second of every day.
Those people,
that hold their rifles, won’t even open their mouths
long after the death grip has loosened.
They do not tell,
so we do not ask,
we imagine.
We pretend to grasp what they have felt,
witnessed.
But the imagination cannot and should not
even grasp the idea
that the only ones to see the end of the war
are the ones who’ve died.
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