How do I not be a veteran?
Can I go back and unwaste
the years spent trying
to win a schoolyard
game of king of the hill?
All that time we
thought we were men,
but couldn’t see we’d never
left the playground and
were still trying to win
the wrong game.
Can I have a do-over
now that I know
what game to play?
I cannot, so with
my identity defined by
my immaturity
I graduate from
soldier to veteran and finally
see how blindly blindingly
mean we were.
I feel like a child
who understands too late
what it means
to hurt someone.
I am better than that now.
Are we better now because of what we learned? Would we have had these realizations without being part of that system? I wonder all the time if my experiences have made me or if I have made my experiences..But I do wish all the time that I had a chance to be a resister instead of standing up after I got out.
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