He Returned Home From the War

He returned home from the war, but he did not stay,
For he returns to the war that he must fight every day;
He keeps in silence the torments that rage inside
As they are tethered to the horrors that he must hide.

He returned home from the war, but still in his mind
Are the acts of death and destruction so vividly defined.
O’, there is no more reality, for hell has taken its toll
From the wages of a war that now burdens his soul!

He abandoned the war for a tranquil home,
But onto the battlefield he returns to roam,
And within his mind the fallen have come to retire
As languishing ghosts from the smoke and the fire.

He now suffers the despair that has come forth to define
The images of war that rage in his mind;
He hears the voices each night from the darkness inside
That resound from the horrors that he must hide.

He returned home from the war, but only to find,
The ghosts of a war that now lurk in his mind.
He does not speak of these things that haunt inside,
So, he endures the anguish that he must hide.

He returned home from the war, but he cannot escape,
And he’s become an effigy with a monstrous shape,
O’ he hates the regrets; he hates what lingers inside
Where the torments of war shall forever reside!
R. L. McCallum