I replaced God’s eyes with flowers
The black powder burned my face
Before the bullet pierced my skull
And my soul left through the exit wound
I held onto it as my body collapsed
And saw the weight of humanity
Tilting the globe into violence
Heaving through the canopy
Defoliating the green
Lead planted like seeds on the forest floor
Aiming at ghosts, malarial weakness skews the
Rifle away
I saw more separated limbs
Then bodies
I saw more medals pinned to oaken ribs
Then the living
I saw burning huts filled only with women and children
And barely men dancing with delusional laughter around them
I saw hardly men blown in half
Screaming for their momma’s as their friends
From five minutes ago flee
God’s eyes searched the shadows of the forest
And only saw wisps of Charlie
Only smelled the acrid discharge of firearms
I saw the sun glow low on the horizon like a fallen deity
And watched the last kinda men leave forever

By barely men I mean the soldiers that killed innocent villagers were barely human anymore, the hardly men were blown in half so they’re “half the man I used to be” because puns, and the kinda men is in reference to how young the American soldiers were in Vietnam