Dear Wife,
I’m going out into the trenches
They called me up.
They said I had a choice,
but that they needed me.
They said this was a civil war
where the friend would be an enemy,
and some of my friends may have been my enemies once.
But this is a big war, one where every shot
matters.
Others, my fellows, they ask me not to fight
I know even you wonder.
But this, this, oh dear Wife,
is a cause deep down in my heart.
One I can’t avoid.
One that’s calling me from years of morality, of religion, of inner truth.
They are angry, oh Wife, so angry.
Angry that I’ve committed to taking down the man in orange
in my own small way,
the man who wants the nuclear codes
to lord over the world.
And laugh at those who fell
for his guiles.
I don’t want to fight,
to see my friends in enemy territory,
with wounded looks
as we battle.
But the orange man is roaring,
and his minions are crawling,
to do his bidding,
as the migrant cries,
for fear his family will be taken
by the “task force,”
and the abused women,
shivers,
reliving,
the words her abuse,
as the orange man screams,
at them all.
And so my friends,
they don’t see,
or know,
that they’re soldiers for the orange man.
They think they lead him,
as he walks them like dogs through the dung-filled streets,
of his words.
Every time he speaks,
they follow him
lower,
deeper,
into the gutter.
All the while,
bringing down the rest.
Men of God,
whose words salve and calm,
have become covered in grime,
taking a bayonet,
and stabbing their beliefs.
What does God think of their words?
When Satan revels in them?
Family men and women,
fathers, mothers, grandparents, aunts, uncles,
caring for the defenseless their life,
put in the trenches,
to endanger every defenseless group,
in their nation.
The good people of the world,
nullified
at the hands of the orange man.
Their own hands,
once clean,
now carrying shit.
As the world
falls
down
into
it.
Dear Wife, they’re calling me,
dear Wife, they’re asking me,
to go to war,
to fight my friend,
to battle my neighbor,
to divide,
and conquer.
“They” are no one.
“They” are the voices that won’t leave me,
the truths inside of me,
that won’t stop their chatter.
And so to the battlefield I go,
not knowing how this ends,
or even how we’ll get there.
Knowing the friends will never see me the same again,
if we remain friends after the war,
knowing they feel betrayed, hurt, singled out.
But Wife, at least you know,
that I love them,
even in war,
even in anger,
even as we fight in the streets.
For they are the prisoners,
the victims,
no different than any others,
who will be hurt just as much
by the orange man.
The con man.
They can’t see.
They may never.
They may direct the hate to the battlefield.
But that does not mean,
that the fight can’t be had.
The fight must be had.
For the orange man roars,
and rears his ugly head,
in his last stand of defiance,
as he dances gleefully over our battle,
knowing it is for him,
and if he wins
there will be many more.
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