solider.

Where does the solider go? How does the one that fought the battle move forward? The flashes of the bombs that exploded are all his eyes can see. The cries of the wounded are all his ears can hear. What happens to the solider when the war has ended? For him the battles are not lessons he will be taught, for him those battles are his nightmares. 

The war ends and he is left standing there on that bloodied field, he knows the cries of victory that are ringing out in the streets so far away, but all he sees is the fear of the soldiers standing next to him and it mirrors his own. The trip home is full of long muddied roads. His path to the freedom he fought for now becomes his own fight with the darkness he sees even on the clearest days. 

Where does the broken solider belong?

 Home is no longer his sanctuary, home is now the place he doesn't fit. A place full of happiness that feels worse the bullets shot on the battlefield. Home is now a jagged edged cliff he walks. They look at this solider and praise his battle scars. They look at this solider and fear the pain he carries so they give him the words to say. Where does this solider belong?

 The battlefield that had become a broken home no longer exists. The home that had been his so long ago now more foreign than every battle he touched. 

Where does this lost wounded solider belong? 

The fellow soldiers he fought with, his people, the ones that understand the look in his eyes are gone. Scattered back to the edges they came from. A unit that had become so much more ripped apart by the end. Fighting had become their way. The taste of smoke and the way it burned their eyes was more natural than a day of clear air. The rippling sound through the air of bullets and weapons striking had become the lullaby to which they fell asleep. The place of destruction had become their home that tied them all together. Now it has ended and the people far removed from those blood covered fields cheer and claim their victory but this solider stands with his hands covered in the invisible blood he has long since washed away. He stands haunted by the hurting eyes that longed for victory he couldn't deliver. The whispers of those that fell away and quit before the last battle follow him like his own shadow and make him doubt his own deepest truths.

 Where does this solider go?

 Trained to fight and willingly giving all he had. Now unfit to belong to this normal day and normal life. Perfection sought and perfection lost. Living among those that will never know him like those that fought alongside him. Day after day. Moment by moment. All he does is wonder. 

Where does this solider belong?