The mindset had been unsettled, all of the blood in their veins boiled,

And the crimson rivers flowed like a waterfall down rock faces.

Down a steep slope it ran, over vines that covered the new surrounding.

Finally coming to rest at the center of a now quiet jungle.

 

We had tried to keep death at a minimum, like in the wars our fathers fought,

But the count had already surpassed the max in the first tour.

We lined up all those purple lips, to be placed in their bags and sent home.

Even with my training, it all seemed too foreign to me.

 

Like matches in a dry box we lined them up for eternal rest-

Still and dull like lilacs after the season has come to its own end.

This was not the heroic fight that was relayed on the television back home.

These young men weren’t going home to their President with gleaming pins on their uniforms.

 

Left lifeless like spare keys in a lost drawer, time moved past- their lives left unaged.

The blood encrusted dog tags torn from bodies- the only part returned to waiting mothers.

The purple language that raged at the endless service in Washington,

Could not be soothed by the purple hearts awarded- they were to be left behind too.