The Battle Within

The Battle Within

At the darkest of night,
The grass dyed red
A battle was being fought
Between those who want more
And those who need more

A lone soldier ran across the shadows
Bullets whizzing
Bombs booming
He tripped on the half decayed body of a comrade
And quickly stood to see a young boy
Quivering in fear.
Noticing the enemy color
The soldier aimed his rifle at the child.

The midnight bullet,
Ready to pierce the child’s life.
The soldiers finger hesitating
As tears trickled down the child’s dirt drowned face
Leaving a clean mark

What was a child this young doing in this bloodbath?
The soldier had asked himself.
He glanced at the metal pinned on his uniform.
His responsibility to kill
What was the child’s responsibility?
To defend his home?

The soldier’s finger tensed
He knew what he was about to do.

Then, a glowing white stag trotted up onto a green hill.
The only green hill.
Among the darkness and shadows
The stag seemed so bright
It caught the soldier’s eyes for a second

He looked back at the child’s tear-drowned face
And noticed in the child’s eyes
The sadness
And the preparation of death

Ages seemed to go by as the soldier still
Hesitated
The dark bullet seemed to beckon to his finger to pull the trigger

The soldier looked back at the hill where the stag had been,
It was gone
And in its place was yet another body
Made from this war
Made from this battle
This conflict
This greed

When the soldier looked back
Tears streamed down his face to see the sunrise
The sun shining on everything that used to be embedded by shadows

And then
It snowed…
Not the snow that caused the cold
The snow that brought death
But the snow that was pure

The soldier dropped his gun and cried
Cried on the day it snowed at a sunrise…