Was War An Honour?
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Georgia Brouner, Grade 9
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Poetry
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2015
Coming home from war, to be reunited with loved ones, they kept you alive, they’re the reason you’re here, you’ve left the battlefields, you’re alive, you’re alive, you keep telling yourself, you’re one of the lucky ones, one of the fortunate ones, but there is no satisfaction in your win, there are no winners, only survivors, the ringing of the bombs is still in your ears, images flash over your now sullen and glazed eyes, is this your honour you wanted?
Will never be the same, doesn’t matter what happens, my life will have always ended at 17, the day I signed up, life will not have its colour nor it’s joy, I am a dead man walking, where’s the honour in that?
Seeing family, friends, tears running down their checks, relief on their faces, they can see I’ve changed, father thinks I’m a man, mother just wants her little boy back, I can’t help everyone but my girl, my girl, she knows me, she knows, and I know that if I’m with her we’ll be ok, I'll be ok... Do you think it was an honour? Do I think it was an honour?
No, it wasn’t an honour, serving your country.