The Battle Rages On - Nicole Ifurung (2017)

Another of my daughter's poems.

The sun sets and the wind blows north;
a third time, my bandage has come undone.
unblinking, I wrap it around my scar given from the earth,
as my weary eyes are drawn to my abraided gun.

I recall a time when I held its sleek figure against my chest,
during a suffocating game of cat and mouse.
My tracks have led him to the depths of the forest
and with a single bullet, to death's hands the man was bound.
The lifeless gaze of the man sprawled on the crimson stained snow
has forever been imbedded in my mind.
A silent scream formed on the lips of my fallen foe
as his body lay still in the cold winter night.
The deafening seconds turn into hours,
and the thud of my boots combined with the rhtyhm of my heart.
My eyes forcibly drank in the sight before me, where devoured
and blood and dirt stained faces lay inches apart.
Crystallized air fills my throat,
and I sink to my knees as a bitter tear traces down my skin.
I darg myself to the stiff body of a solider and pull away his coat,
revealing a picture of a smiling woman and child lying by his chin.
With my numb ivory fingers, I grasp the barrel of my gun with purpose;
my hollow eyes are underlined with throbbing veins.
I look down my rifle, and focus on my boots' worn out surface.
Now only the pain and suffering of my comrades remain.

Under the faint moonlight, only the stars are witness to my victim,
and I hesitantly pull the trigger, I hear a child-like cry.
The crisp sting of the lead sinks into my system,
and the fading victim is none other than I.

The bullet that pierced my flesh will forever remain a symbol of my cowrdice,
and this burden shall follow me during the day.
I now lay home safe with my conscience, my only nemesis,
burdened with the truth that I too should have been buried under the snow where my friends forever lay.