Start with Me - by Hailey Davidson
Start with me.
I’m the child.
I’m the child who at eighteen months old
Waits for my father to come home from a war he may or may not survive
I’m the child of a mother who is praying into her pillowcase every night
That he will come home and I will remember his face
And remember that he held me in his hands when I was born
And they were warm
And he was warm
Alive
Not stone
Stone is just the soldier part.
Turn on your television and see me
The wife
Grieving
Weeping
Hoping
Not sleeping
Still has to wake up in the morning
And remember to pack the kids lunches
And forget about the feeling in my stomach
Whenever the five o’clock news comes on
And forget about my heart sinking
Every time a car drives past the house
I’m the one that stays
Gracefully as I can
I am the one who has to pretend
We are okay
Pretend like I am not fighting my own war
No sweetheart
Mommy is okay
Mommy wasn’t crying
You can sleep with mommy tonight
Mommy misses daddy too.
A ring is a different kind of soldier part.
Pan left on us
The news reporters
Who shout and scream
For pride
And to welcome our boys home
With pride
And make sure to film it all
With flags
And ribbons
And pictures of a flower on your Facebook in November
Get that angle
Spectacular shot there
But always make sure
That the television waves
Will mask the ghosts these men and women are haunted by
If we shove the cameras
Into their face far enough
You won’t see
Can I ask you a couple questions?
Did it make you feel proud?
What’s heroic to you about getting a picture of a little girl crying for her daddy not to go?
You can Capture the soldier part.
I hope you can sleep at night
Because we sleep on the ground
If we can sleep
Can you sleep
I forget
Do you feel tired
A lot
It’s cold
The dead are colder
That’s the scary part
I’m the officer
Who went home
Most of me went home
I fed my right leg to the war
And they said they’d fix my head
But it’s gone
I’m gone
When most of me went home
I found my wife with someone else
And she’s gone
She wants
The car
The house
The kids
They’re gone.
Then what.
Go on back
Give it another go
Another try
Count on my fingers
How many times you can go back
Until your whole body is fed to it
You’re a soldier aren’t you?
I know the soldier part, okay?
I am the private that shot four people today
I’m a kid that shot four people today
But it doesn’t matter because I’ll go out again in two hours and shoot six more
I’m a kid that calls my mother every chance I get
So she knows I’m alive
I don’t tell her
That I shot four people today
How do you tell someone
You were driving
And something blew up
Along with two of my men
And mama I carried one of them by his femur
And mama I tried to bring him back
I tried telling him, mama, that he’d go home too|But he was already gone mama
Mama I’m gone
I’m going
I put my brother on a plane back home
Then got pushed back out
Into the line of fire like
This war isn’t over yet
Go on
Let’s do it again
You’re a soldier right?
I get the soldier part.
End with me.
What it is like to be truly scared.
Poem by Hailey Davidson