Any Other Day

 

Today was like any other day, like any other day.

Everything seems to bother me. I wish I could go away.

Last night I thought of things, things that I could do;

But every morning it’s the same, I awake feeling so blue.

 

The doctors give me medicine but the pain still exists;

I live my life now looking through a lithium mist.

Eighteen pills a day I take to make it through the day;

My family suffers, yet they have never gone away.

 

I talk to the others; they pretty much feel the same.

Like we are the pawns in some ugly filthy game.

Survival was our only sin; it is what wars all about.

Some have journeyed, taking the so called easy way out.

 

In combat we had each other, we never felt alone;

Returned to a world of strangers in what used to be our home.

Watching TV, remembering those we left behind;

Making it home, like dying, wasn’t kind.

 

I, like others am proud of what we did in the war;

I, like so many others hope there will be no more.

We cried for the dead, those that never made it home;

Now let’s care for the living, those that feel alone.

 

                                                          Michael D. Monfrooe

                                                          July/August 1998