No Man's Land Poem by Donna Dolorical

Because this is war and in order to survive I should first be lost.
I need to take down the mirrors and let go of reflections, whether real, imagined, or desired.
I need to clap on the side-blinds to keep from blank papers that steal away time.
And what I lose, I cannot borrow from other people's words, or songs, or thoughts.
I'm going to have to stop.
Here, take this crate which contains all of me, and all that I need lost and forgotten for the moment.
Then I'm going to have to slave away my youth, even if already I feel old and invalid.
Because this is a war that I have to get through alive even if by the end of it, my dreams may have died.
It's just, you don't have to let me know right away, you won't have to send me a widow's telegram.
That way I can go on wearing my hope along with my dog tags.