Communication 110

Pete S Martinez – Communication Transcript
 

Danny,

do you remember the war games
we’d play in the heat of the day
down on your farm?
I’d use the haystacks and barn
as cover, you’d use the silo
as a look out post,
our rifles were forged from bracken and oak,
you were sergeant, I was corporal,
through the streams and fields we’d crawl,
we were fighting for freedom,

“all for one and one for all”
when we got tired we’d go home for tea
all missions completed successfully,
and all our prisoners of war set free,

Today we set up base
on the outer reaches of Saigon,
it’s so hot, ninety degrees and rising
I am trying to forget what I’ve seen
people with the same soul as me, dying
I crave anything to dull the pain,
days and nights fueled by
amphetamine, we’re all tied by a torment,
it’s so hard to explain,
resulting to anything to keep us sane
out here I am lost, this war is no game,
me, a stranger in a foreign land
my only cover, the next man,
all that I am, is designed to kill,
forgive me for the blood that I spill
forgive me for the lives I take
I hate the decisions I’m forced to make,
but I have no choice

Danny,
do you remember when
we’d pretend to play dead?
slumped lifeless in the fields on the farm,
do you remember when we said
“we’ll stay friends forever”
if it came to it we’d die for one another,
despite my reservations,
you kept your word,
today on patrol a single
gunshot was heard,
believed to be a sniper
no one knew, there was no time
to second guess
you fell forward, a single puncture
wound to the chest

I am writing this to let you know
I broke your fall,
it was painless and quick,
you felt nothing at all,
I am writing this so people realize
you were true to your word
in a war built on lies
your last breath was gone
before you even closed your eyes,
the enemy’s determination,
we can’t match it
I can’t see a way out of this
it’s far greater than
we ever could’ve known

Danny,
we won’t be coming home