We Hold These Truths

Seductive ideals of freedom cloud my mind as i load my musket.
I stand in a line of my countrymen, once again at the breach.
It is just a ragged flag of colors and shapes that rises with our advance, yet it gives me courage now, in the face of my reckoning.
As we take aim i wonder why do we seek clarity in our confusion through steel and blood?
There is no sense of liberty as our officer shouts 'Fire!'
The muskets burst and our enemies fall, the recoil impacting our souls.
I begin reloading, noting that no weapon is ever truly clean.
Across the plain the enemy has taken aim.
I flinch, awaiting my fate as metal rips through our ranks.
Men fall and their blood stains the grass and the silent wind that chills follows them out of their bodies.
These noises are the ballad of tragedy, no one mans scream louder than the other.
Better to die now, the things they have done, the things they have endured.
Exasperated is my call for forgiveness, and foolish.
I feel no comforting hand of a deity on my shoulder, only eyes watching in horror.
This foolhardy search of virtue and honor, ever more lost with every shot.
There is no reward for these victories.
We are left to wash the blood off our hands.
I look to the clouds and beseech them to condemn me and end my misery!
What a burden my mind is now, my greatest wound.
Look not at my eyes lest you be dragged down into the flames with me.
Alas no man is the greater through his victories in battle, rather he becomes shell of mortal shame waiting for justice to be done to him.
I myself have gained a foolhardy courage in knowing that i am destined to doom.
All the while the smug reaper taps his nose.