Implication

I only know
because I have learned.
Stories withheld are equally earned
and tales told are privilege allowed.

Curiosity, though it begs,
is but a fiat currency,
powerful in its own worth
and valued for its perception.

For want of words never said,
emphatically loud whispers
are willfully forgotten,
delighting all concerned

though they shout with acts,
yell for action,
implore in acquiescence,
and present with presence.

Longing forget is willingly forgotten
while the joy for loss
turns to a loss of joy;
a shame(d) with a smile.

Words unsaid are as meaningful
as their otherwise-
living demands that
we forgive their absence.

Ego

Moments...
They define life
while experience serves but to dilute it.

The beauty of experience is fear,
a state of life
lost in content.

There certainly is emotion in forgetting.

Life is the ultimate advocate of entropy,
questioning its existence
brings order to the devolved.

There is order in pain.

The spite of hate
exists to question
the privilege of living.

As if luck has anything to do with it!

We taste fear,
see life,
and listen for answers.

Our ears and eyes may deceive us,
but the palate preserves
the palatable.

I've asked for more
because it tastes so damned good,
chewing always though the burn.

It is a guttural understanding-
The one you don't dare allow influence
because you can't. Fucking. Describe. Taste.

The taste that can motivate you
is the same that can't
offer any relief.

It is, in fact, a thing.

Passion personified
is only an answer
to a question of passion.

And taste is but another question upon itself....

Pain, it is an answer:
the Real where ambiguity stays afraid and
ostracizes fate.

Ease is facilitated by the simple.
Hate actually lives there,
but no one has ever tasted hate.

We only hate to taste.

Introspection

Just how long do I have to suffer
through this pain in my neck
before I decide that I've
been hanging my head for too long?

I'm an unsuccessful success:
The tears of happiness taken out of context,
the euphoria from a guiltily bummed cigarette,
and the drug store, closing time wine, enjoyed because the presented glass can't explain
    that it was filled from a box.

I'm the song that you love but can't, for your life, name,
a good deal bought from the commissioned,
the inexplicable awe and elation from an echo,
and the trepidation from a long awaited text message response.

I am the finger removed from the trigger,
reluctantly replaced,
and removed again.
Still living...

I'm together the fear and optimism of the unknown,
the infatuated "I love you,"
and the redundant cliche.
I am this once empty page.

Block(ed)

This. Empty. Page:
A result of such conceded failure
where success would stoically prove otherwise,
having left no evidence at the seen.

Not everyone deserves to know
the realization of your story.
But everyone has indeed earned the opportunity
to make certain that it has been told.

Knowledge isn't in the knowing,
but in the learning.
Depravity is the everyday, unseen proof
that the story goes yet unwritten.

Justice is realized on the face of precedent,
hence: Injustice.
This, even though ignorance presents as the
byproduct of stories withheld.

Words are the fight,
the struggle,
the proof,
and the answer.

Even when the answer is wrong,
there is no question left
but for those that were aborted
before they have ever realized that they had lived.

Let me,
no, find me,
pray,
be write.

Relief

I'm starting to think that I may never know what right is.
In that, I find no solitude.
But I believe, too,
that such incognition
may be anything but mutually exclusive.

We all feel pain,
and mine is worse than yours by rite.
By writ!
A solace as undeserved as the breath yet laboring.
Exclusivity earned in spite of its understanding.

Why then do we suffer?
Sharing is the first of the facades that
we are taught.
Overcoming intrinsic greed is the fallacy of
our collective hope.

We give only but because we want.
Love is the most selfish of acts,
paradoxically selfless in the same.
Which is how I fear how I love without loving
and maybe why I hate how I love.

Why do the answers so often go unquestioned?
Rationalizations are subjective,
perchance.
And so we spitefully expire while hoping to inspire
when perhaps found is in the finding all along.

To earn without earning
and to deserve absent entitlement
mocks reality.
But to hurt?
Maybe that is to be.

And if so, that means that just maybe...
I've been the wrong right throughout.

Translucent

It's pretty easy to start to forget who you are when you've been reminded so often of who you're supposed to be.

Subjectivity is the robber in the night, taking always from the unaware.

Until you find it.

And then you fuck it up.

Or, hope to at least...

Get it before it gets you.

Hoping always that you find no fear in the moment. Yet, still failing.

Unless, maybe, you train for it?

Give up. It's a trade off. Some might say a sacrifice. But only such if what you give up is more than what you get in return.

A fallacy.

It's a selfish act.

It makes you feel good.

But, goddammit, how do you make them feel good if you can't enjoy it too?

Sometimes...

They are worth more than you.

Sometimes you are worth more than it all.

The hard part is the question.

I suppose that the hardest part is that you are never so far from dying then when you are ready to die.

Those moments are so few and far apart.

And always jealous of each other.

But the fear.
The fear...
It remains.

Fear is the greatest of emotions,
because it compounds the day.

It mocks the pain and forgives nothing.

The same nothing that is always Something.
The something you long to forget.
The something that you should.
The something that should be something.

We understand nothing because nothing needs no explanation!

But, fuck. It should.

Don't we deserve that? To stand up to fear?

We do. But not if we allow fear the power it so desperately desires.

Which I do on account of me.

Probably because I'm scared as fuck.

In which case...

I deserve it.

Chapter 1

1.

The callous opening of the certain to be creaking door forces my eyes open again as the indifferent light of midday pours over the makeshift plywood barrier that some would call a wall and into my escape known as a room. I quickly shut it out with lightly closed eyes while I blissfully remember that I will actually sleep today. The welcome effects of the Ambien would mute my racing mind shortly, and finally I would rest. It has been over three weeks since I was last able to experience what most would consider being sleep, having instead fought with my thoughts in place of the more definitive enemy with whom I toiled on my previous deployments.

Yes, I am at war again. Well, I’m in a war, but that’s not what I mean. The previous struggles with myself didn’t manifest during the two years that I had spent in Iraq, but at homes in Tennessee, Germany, California, and Texas. Here in Afghanistan though, on the eve of our withdrawal from the shadow of the Hindu Kush, everything seems to be a little bit…different.

I didn’t hear the door because the Jaybird earbuds that I rely on to try to consummate my disassociating illusion were attempting to lullaby me with Anna Nalick’s “Breathe,” compliments of Pandora through my phone and the nearly unjustifiably priced internet service that AAFES had so kindly monopolized for us. I say nearly because habit now fully dictates that internet is better than no internet. That and I don’t really have a CD player anymore.

The fact that I even have the ability to take advantage of such things is just one of the myriad of reasons why this time feels different. I refuse to allow myself to complain about it, if only because of the music. Sure, the ability to know what’s going on back home and to be able to talk to the family if I like is nice. But forgo the music? I’d surely be lost without it.

My thoughts had just started to coalesce around my worries as I noticed the warmth of the very capable sleep aid beginning to kick in. Not yet, I told myself. This is more important than the respite that I had been so desperately seeking out. Norah Jones' sultry sweetness wasn’t helping me in this endeavor so I begrudgingly removed my headphones, only to suddenly experience the cacophonous racket of the military vehicles crunching through the gravel as they meandered by the building. I imagined the Soldiers guiding each one by foot, and could even discern their footsteps from the heavy rolling wheels. Stop it. Focus before you fall asleep.

I fought my way back into the conversation I had with the Command Sergeant Major as he pecked around his rationale for removing me from my Company to instead work for him, mere weeks before we deployed. Sitting across from him was the youngest First Sergeant in the Brigade, still yet after having aged two years in the position. I managed the great responsibility as a rare non-promotable E-7, who over my tenure, had built the finest fighting force in the Command. I knew this even without relying on the reverence that pride demanded, but he admitted as much to me while proceeding to delicately crush my current reality. There was no arguing against it. His mind had been made up and I wouldn’t be deploying with my men. It didn’t make sense to me, and I told him so.

Reverting to my second Course of Action, I requested a release to accept the highly coveted billet I had been offered as the Senior Operations Sergeant for the Commandant of West Point, a position that my well networked Commander had negotiated for me to get in light of his current frustration with the circumstances of my surprise removal. The shrewd, wily CSM smiled as he paused before he looked me in the eye and told me what I didn't want to hear, even if it was to be expected. “Why would I agree to let someone of your caliber go right before we go to war? No, I need your brain here.” Performance punishment. I was surprised to notice his sure voice tapering off, catching him looking down and away from the particularly insensible stare forward of my clinched jaw. I had been defeated, and despite the glowing evaluation and sympathetic words from my most senior enlisted leader, I didn’t even know why.

Regardless of my present frustration, I respected the man. He had always appeared to me a realist; firm, and willing to compromise when practical. Every sentence I had shared with him reeked for the want of development. He was a true Soldier in that he always appeared to put the needs of his organization first, regardless of circumstances apparent demand to the contrary. His impersonality was enough to embody the intrinsic vision of the highest enlisted rank, but he always ended conversations with a conciliatory pat on the shoulder and a spry smile that assured you that he was supposed to be right. The smile in this moment was momentarily absent before he caught himself.

Drugged and indiscernible semantics circled about the coming ether for what may have been a few more minutes before I recalled my annoyance at having been relegated to asking for some placatory measures. He assured me that I would be slotted in a Master Sergeant position, continuing then to be rated as an E-8. It was my only win of the meeting. “You deserve as much for the fine work you’ve done for us, First Sergeant.”

He extended his arm for a handshake as he rose from behind his desk. I couldn’t help but think that this would be one of the last times that I would be regarded with the title. “Anything else for me,” he asked as I prepared myself to hide the disgust that I was feeling with such extant failure to achieve my objectives. Withholding all the things that I had actually wanted to say, I simply thanked him for the opportunity, managing somehow to keep the inherent sarcasm from escaping in tandem with the words.

I surrendered the fight in the office and behind my eyelids while effects from the chlorophyll moistened rag that was the Ambien finally succeeded in encompassing my mind, drawing me further into its dauntless darkness. I opened my eyes one more time only to see the old style pineapple grenade gimmick on the CSM’s desk enticing me to pull the pin if I had a complaint.