Heart

The front of me is all red

and I want you to hold me tight

tight like a field dressing

to keep me from bleeding out

but I know that isn’t a fair 

task to want you to undertake 

not even your valiant heart

should have to heal these hurts

from the IEDs of the roadside 

of my existence, from the 

sniper fire that keeps raining 

down upon us from up ahead

where the world is waiting 

to ambush our forces again.

I’d rather you got out

if it is a question of sacrifice 

then run and remember 

how you had already done 

everything that you could 

to help and to hold my hand

in the last breaths

was not required of you

what I am wishing for

is that you might come through 

mostly intact and pay for me 

the debt of memory.

Say that the light burned 

in my eyes until the last

moments and that I was 

worth coming back for

tell them that I whispered

my love at the close that I 

flickered out like a candle

in the shuddering end 

and that my soul was 

lit up even when the shell

of me was drenched 

with the blood of my heart.

Captured IEDs from a cache left behind by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Syria, 26 January 2019.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improvised_explosive_device#/media/File:ISIL_IEDs.jpg