A Warrior's Truth

The dying gasps of night are blackest before the dawn,
The final surge of courage calls us to battle on.
Enemies approaching from the hillside to the west,
Trenches lined with casualties pulling at my chest.
Flares as bright as day blinding vision tones of white,
Bullets biting dirt rings too familiar sounds of spite.
When the hours turn to minutes and the minutes reach the past,
And the battles done but never won and men pray for the blasts.
When the final bullet spits its shell and looks upon the dead,
And the sun peaks over mountaintops and the pallid sands run red,
When the dust settles and smoke gives way to enemies’ defeat,
My heart pumps blood but since that day has completely ceased to beat.
So many lives the field does claim, the line drawn in the sand.
But the battle lives on inside of us, the survivor’s the real dead man.