distress (post-revelations)

you keep telling her
that it's under control,
that you've stopped seeing the fires,
enemy patrols,
hearing the bombs go off down the street
killing kids who refused to retreat
but when she's gone you put yourself back there.
fifteen years doesn't make it better.
you can still see the ashes in the air.

but you have the cure, the haze,
the calm in a little glass bottle
you stole from some army hospital.
you keep saying
"this is hell, this is hell"
but no one understands
and that's not what you need to hear.
you try to still your shaking hands
with drugstore heroin,
make the safety disappear
until you're free to fire at will.
but you just keep on killing that kid you killed.

this is not something you can handle.
there is no reason, no excuse.
but you'd rather live the dilaudid lie
than have the only truth you can remember
dissolved in the fluid inside your eyes.
and you've already sent out the SOS call,
tracked the letters in the static snow.
you keep saying
"this is hell, this is hell"
so i'll say what you need to hear.
true and sober.
"i know, man.
i know."