A Soldier's River: A Poem

A Soldier's River

By Danielle Rojas

I crawl towards the river,

The stones of gravel turning to sand

with every clench of my hand.

Each ripple pinches my fingertips.

It flows like satin and looks like petals

But feels like marble.

I bring water to my cracked, brittle lips.

When there's enough life in my throat,

I roll onto my back and see

Stone clouds foretelling of lucid daggers,

Hungry to strike anyone left standing.

Reminders of the warzone I escaped

Blind like flashes from a camera,

Each one faster than the last,

Each one so bright that the world blackens,

Flashbacks of blood on my hands,

Sticky mold the weight of lead,

Curses spat on my boots

Of black smoke and ghosts

Promising to haunt my next of kin.

When I hear screams in the distance,

The flashbacks stop firing,

The blue doors of my sanity slam shut

Like a prison cell in Alcatraz,

My every thought forever strung

on the line of war,

My every word echoing the screams.

Of that woman who cursed me.

Each shrill lodges in my side like a bullet,

Each cry forceful enough to tear an arm.

I empty my pockets,

A feeble attempt to wash away the darkness,

To stop the flashes but hold the light.

Bug repellent, chewing gum, tent,

map, six rounds of ammo, first aid kit,

The photograph….

A tank could collapse

under the weight of that one photograph,

The lips smiling as wide as the Nile,

The eyes not yet bullet-shaped,

An inevitable scar from the battlefield.

It was me the day I enlisted,

My looping script on the back of the photo,

Each swirl now mocking the water balloon fights

and hide-and-seek nights:

"The water's always flowing."

The screaming stops, the wind picks up,

And I open my palms.

The burnt corners of the photo sweep my hand's calluses.

Like a painter's brush on stone,

The edges won't stick to skin,

The living can't blend with the dead.

The wind sweeps away the photo,

Polluting the air like dust from a herd escaping hyenas.  

Lighter and clean, I look back to the river.

A reflection of a weathered soldier,

Wounded, breathing.

When the next bullet comes,

No muscles will rip, no blood

will spill, no darkness will blind.

The river remains the way

I've always seen it.