He sat on my stoop, slightly drunk as usual, with his head against my door.
He swayed a bit as I helped him inside and asked me for a drink.
I gave him water, fed him a meal, and listened like I always did.
He told me the stories he could not escape,
The stories that drove him to walk the night,
The stories that put him there with his gun.
The war, some covert machination for unknown gain,
Where he killed for reasons he was never told,
Continued to claim him as a casualty.
He did not kill himself that night,
Though he fired one shot in his liquored haze.
Perhaps he knew it did not matter,
Because he had not returned alive at all.
No war is just, for any cause, if this is what results.
I hold the brass casing in my hand and mourn.
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