NAVI

Ivan if you can

hear me I recognize you

and I will never

forget how you noticed

my face grow softer…. For you….

First Grade

I have known you since

forever and when you look

at me like that you

invoke feelings I used to

have as a small, young first grader.

Children

I look at you like

I am a child because you

and I knew we’d

have a future together

and you knew me ever since.

Love

You love me like you’ve

won a war but do you still

have strength to hold me while you

look at me like that?

Like A Child

I was young to the world and became like a child.

But in the end, I ended up having to lose you.

Time and time again.

For A Friend

Before I knew it, death; Thanatos or whatever it was looked at me the way it looked at him and stared at me right in the face.

I’d still look for you friend,

But years afterward I’d be in love and in bed beside another man.

You’d pray for me friend,

But Thanatos did not hide.

At least not tonite.

For you

And if you missed a day, there was always the next,

and if you missed a year, it didn’t matter,

the hills weren’t going anywhere,

the thyme and rosemary kept coming back,

the sun kept rising, the bushes kept bearing fruit—

– Sunrise, by Louise Glück

But who were you when you were a young man before you left because you didn’t know the future or the things to come?

What would’ve enticed you before you started asking who did this to you, who did this to you?

Before you began asking afterwards why me, why me?

Navy Blue

And if you do get lost at sea, will the tide touch your body and will the wind come back to touch your cheek before you reach the shore or before water enters your lungs to bring you eternal sleep before you are saved?

Before you think I suffocated you to make you stay.

Remember me sir and come back home in one piece please. Forgive me if I meant it but you are not a soldier just yet.

You see, you are a man who should not have been allowed into the arms.

A young boy joining the military to come home to no one who gave a flying fuck about him.

No recognition of any kind all except to come home to assholes who sent you there.

The military gave you a permanent fuck you.

I say the military fucked you hard, and as you got older you got no respect and you’re not the young boy who loves to run in fields of gold and talk alllll the time.

Of course I know who you are and who you were before the navy.

Of course I know who you are and who you were before the navy.

You just wanted to live a fulfilling life and have adventures everyday and live.

Well soldier, keep living.