Happiness was like a chipping yellow monkey bar, always just out of reach.
I spend my time jumping up until I get a hold of it, and then I hold on tight till my fingers get sweaty and aching and my hands start to slip. Then it’s back down. Then it’s back to jumping.
*
I asked you once what you wanted and you said “to be content.” i thought a lot about that. I thought it sounded like stopping, and putting your weapons down and seeing a small pink flower and planting a garden. My own dreams look like running through endless fields, watching flowers blur by and never stopping because just another day, just another mile till the brighter ones. And the brighter ones.
*
There was a near-deafening noise around me and it knocked me backwards and then I fell into a golden haze which was silent except for the sound of bumblebees buzzing. It was a hum. It was your voice. It was my own – laughing. Something inside my chest is smiling and buzzing and it reaches my head and my hands and my cheek.
*
Lists of voices and words build up like walls around my skin and eyes and ears.
I think of the bumblebees.
*
I think of stepping away from the war and coming home to you.
In my holster there is a chipped yellow gun and when I pull the trigger, pink flowers burst out.
On the battlefield – I laugh.
*
16.7.2020 and 17.7.2020