Love And War Poem by Aaron Graham

Love and War

Abiit Iam et Reverti Debet
(He has been gone for long and must once return)



Prelude, Kuwait


Despite both faith and hope in times of love and of war—
Loneliness becomes a disease no medicine can cure.
In its final stages, always fatal—
A malignancy I battled before.
When we were in love.
When I was at war.

The Desert
My fortress built in a picture frame—
Allowed me to endure.
Forty times a day I would see within
What lay a lifetime, a gulf, and an ocean away:
My cure, my strength
Peace.
When I had been hidden from life’s restless daggers
And lay beside you, my exact counterpoint
I fit.
That was, itself, contentment.
If anyone asked me if I was happy
I would, unflinching, look them in the eye and say
Yes.

The Desert and Nowhere
When I was still able to see the picture
Our oak entertainment center, built at zero-drunk-thirty
That had some upside down shelves.
tan particle board and black paint clash.
Because I clash with directions.
Citrus candles: cause you hated that I smoke.
Your issues of Cosmopolitan stacked on our mismatched shelves.
I loved it all.
Even the TV
We stole from Jake’s trailer when he left town.

Nowhere
The picture frame broke
Too small to hold Contentment or peace
Wishes, and might-have-beens are a dead limb.
Best amputated before sepsis sets in.
I cut mine to late.
Life is full of betrayal
And I’m to full of life.

San Diego, California
The fear of being alone

Nowhere, California
Post operative care
There’s a funny duality in that.
A single note on official hospital stationary
Wife called.
Couldn’t stand these past 6 months.
Being alone.
She would have preferred me.
But—being alone—
She drove our car
To be with him
and not alone.
Kept my last name, but replaced
Me

Nowhere, Nowhere
Life is helplessness in the pain of betrayal.
And I am still to full of life.

I am told what I say is bleak, dark,
And will only harden my heart.
Some people end up alone in life.
I are never to know the reason.
Wounds crust in time-salt.
There is poetry in despair
And life in the nothing that is not there
And the nothing that is.