The gung ho fires roar and roar.
Another squad is pulverized, the ones that came here before.
A half a shot of redemption, hanging afloat half a mile.
200 red candles burning, no one here.
No one can hear.
Paranoid thoughts, ugly trembling, self-loathing…
All this is a sorry excuse.
A war that shouldn’t have been.
My courage that should have been.
Those children…
We need to sleep now and forget it.
Never again.

See also: Warrior (a poem written while stuck in traffic)