burying the past
the game’s over
it’s taken me more years than expected
to make it all the way back home
I’d been fighting
for so many lives than my own
when they finally brought me back
I was not going to burden anyone
I was going to do what I’ve always done
determined to show
strength comes from different places
eventually I had to face the reality of my own
a little box less than five feet tall
steel capped boot pressing shovel
repeatedly into the earth
august two thousand twenty
copyright j matthew waters
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