Old As Your Moments

-Old As Your Moments-
by Keaton Foster



Wrinkled face
Wasted away
Old as your moments
Not as your age
You’ve seen a lot
More than most
Oh the hell
The darkest days
You somehow survived
Living to tell the tale
But for the most part
You have remained silent
Choosing to express
What the past has all meant
With the lines upon your face
With your scars
And those tattered hands
When people unrelated
Those who don’t know you
Like I do
The ones unable to fight
For what they believe
See you
They are unable to relate
They have no idea
That what is wrong with you
Is in direct correlation
To not only what you’ve done
But what it is you have survived
But I know father
I of course truly understand
The few tales that you’ve told me
Have sunken into my chest
Rattled my inexperienced mind
Lending me perspective
Where before there was none
Once you killed a man
He was not the first
But he was the last
His death by your hands
Was up close and personal
He was the enemy of our way
And as your orders declared
He deserved to die
Such orders came from man
Not from God
Something you have always
Fought to reconcile
You said it happened on the line
In the deep blackness of night
He was attempting to sneak
Into a well-fortified base
He made it through the wire
Past all of the guard towers
You were the last man to stop him
You had nothing with you but a blade
He had no weapon
But he was wired to explode
He had no intention of surviving
A man with no fear of death
Is by far the most dangerous type
As you said, a hellish fight ensued
Better the man, wanting to live
The upper hand became yours
His disregard for death
Was no advantage for your wish
To survive beyond that dark night
You drove the knife into his heart
And as he died there in your arms
At your hands
You promised him
I won’t ever forget this moment
I will live with these demons
So that others won’t have to
When the war ended
You made your way home
Back to everything you knew
Before you were sent away
Before you would made to decide
Kill or be killed
Old as your moments
Aged beyond the number assigned
Aged beyond the experiences sown
Each day since father
I know that another part of you
Has died a premature death
Be assured father
That when all that remains of you
Finally goes
I will stand at your grave
Saluting you for what you’ve done
To ensure that people like me
Those of us not tasked with killing
Were afforded such freedom of being
Old as your moments
Your actions gave us the right to survive
And the right to be free to further decide
I understand that all that we can do
Is show our appreciation towards you
For doing what you felt you had to do…



Old As Your Moments
Written by Keaton Foster Copyright © 2014.