The Battle of Palmitto Ranch

The Battle of Palmitto Ranch

The lines break in voices cheering me on

To live this life with you, I am called to be

In my mind are all of these choices

I break down and can lucidly see

Days and weeks, and hours and years

Time piling up and no matter the length

Use to be smaller than the fear

Bearing me down into this corner of man

Incapable of shedding this anklet of who I was

Still living scars as sins you suffered for despite

Loving and losing and praying and choosing

The choice to want your joy

Here in my heart I have rebelled

The anthills overturned, the minions scurrying

I bore out their tunnels and labyrinths, 

Excavated for a clear consciousness

These sad carcasses have been ushered out

By the retreating factions I have vanquished into early retirement

A last battle of a civil war and I scoff at sequel conflicts

In a usurping tone, I no longer have confederacy or union

I am my country, stronger, belting and proud

I own my Iraq to my Vietnam, to my Gettysburg to my Selma, Alabama fire hoses

I have decimated this inner conflict in stupendous victory

And I want to share this undiscovered paradise with you

In rainbow weeps in the aftermath of cumulonimbus tears

I see the bullet burns that brazed your cheeks, so close to fatal injury

Of us, of what we could ever be, my apologies in Beethoven overtures

In the Ode to Joy that I see your faith and trust in me as warranted truths

I deserve in these arms that long to hold you

Love that is seeping from my chest in heavy breaths

Cognizant of the duality of oxygen, who you are has made this liberation

Possible within these caged lungs, crying freedom