Battle Cries

You peak your head out of your burrow
And gaze upon the battlefield --
A rival musket fires off a shot of “you cannot”
And whispers words of worthlessness as it
Whizzes passed your ear.

You take it in.
You don’t belong here.
You aren’t good enough, and probably never will be.
Nobody wants you here, and you may as well leave.
You’re awful, you’re despicable, you’re deserted.

The field fills with cries of loneliness and pain
As you shake the sounds of the enemy out of your head,
And look forward to the war standing before you.
Slowly you sink back into your bunker and think,
“It would be so easy not to fight back.”

Explosions shower debris of the mistakes
That replay nightly on the inners of your eyes
As you try to sleep at night.
The sounds of your memories collapse around you
As the enemy moves closer through No Man’s Land.

Finally you realize that you have to open your eyes
And fight back if you ever want anything to change.
You raise your head and your musket,
And run out into the vast entity of smog --
Charging forward to make it to tomorrow.

Bullets of “turn back now” singe your clothes
As you march forward through the insecurity.
Cries of “you’ll never be enough” erupt around you
As you squint through the dense clouds that impair your sight.
You hesitantly raise your weapon and fire a retaliation of “yes I am.”

And then you fire another.
Then take few steps forward.
Then you send two more retorts.
Then you sprint forward without hesitation,
And let loose the rest of your ammo.

All goes silent and you stand unarmed but reassured.
You slow to a walk and take in the crunches
Of the past beneath your boots.
You surface out of the smog and inhale deeply for the first time,
And know there is no longer anything to be afraid of.