Battlefield

We slipped off our masks and looked around

as the stench of the casualties wafted into the cool evening air.

I hung my head,

arms flaccid by my sides,

and said a long silent prayer for the fallen;

our brothers and sisters--

an entire family forged by friendships--

all lost by nightfall.

The glow from our torches illuminated the battlefield

and transformed the darkness of the night

into illusory daylight.

I glanced at you with eyes, watery and red-rimmed,

searching,

pleading,

for any answers within the windows to your soul,

that would help to calm the ongoing terror inside me.

You shook your head and not a word escaped from your lips.

Dust and dirt covered us all over,

mixed with different shades of crimson.

Even though the war was over,

hellish images still swam inside my mind’s eye,

not wanting to cut me loose.

Were we monsters?

Or merely protecting those we loved?

I let out a shaky breath,

and for a split second,

exhaustion slammed into me and my body slackened.

I felt a rush of desire to collapse next to

the strewn bodies of the enemy

and join them in the afterlife.

My eyelids grew heavy and a sense of descent overtook me.

As I hit something solid, slight tingles of pain registered faintly.

I realized that it was your arms that had caught me.

The warmth of your body reverberated through mine and I shivered,

but only at the onset of my temperature rising

in the frigid zephyr of the night.

Now there was a battlefield

within my mind,

within my body,

within heart and soul

that raged on,

with infinite fuel and supplies.

And I wasn’t sure how it would ever end.