I was damaged from the very moment that I recognized the situation as a barrier between the streets and the wheeze of a living ant-filled bloom.  The acrid scent of dead orange blossoms welded with dark helicopter spirits, inflamed my spleen with images of the torrential rains of Vietnam.  The bloody musk of this monumental illness is nothing like I thought it would be.  I never spoke of the daily nightmares from dusk to dawn or the letters sent home in Winter or the future burning of my family not knowing where I had gone.  I was dropped from the sky into this life of trembling war and now in my last breath the bullet of memory rips through my intestines, but, I still die, knowing I was good.  

 

©️Winter Dawn Burns