Peace denied

He cried and brokenly confessed,
I lied, he said, and all these years my dreams
have been tormented by his pleading mouth,
bright blood bubbling wordlessly, accusing me.
I lied because it was so stupidly wrong that he
died, that he was killed by freakish chance, a
frantic trigger finger and a flash of movement
in the corner of the eye.

Alas, the malevolent bullets know
no friend or foe and unleashed go with
unseemly haste true to their destiny.

He died while we waited in profound shock
for medevac, dumbfounded we had killed
a comrade, scared for our lives. And while
we waited the black-clothed enemy attacked.
We fought with disbelief, then anger, they had
sensed our grief and sought to kill us easily while
we lay aground protecting our dead comrade.

In the battle’s aftermath, when we had regained
our wits, I wrote he was wounded and had died in
the first moments of the exchange. The gunner who
squeezed the trigger and ended his life, sick with
remorse, cried his choke-voiced thanks.

Now I, too, need the peace denied me.
Please release me from my dreams.
© I.D. Carswell