A blanket of sadness

Covers me like snow

Falling in silence

Where dark and unknown

Changing with the winds

Blowing, deep, the drift

I’m buried underneath

Frostbit and frozen stiff

Sudden chills and shivers

’Cross my heart in languish

When weight, too much to bear

Breaks my fragile branches

I’m hoping for the sun

To emerge from clouds of gray

And thaw my heart to warm

From the winter; my dismay

Blood rush

Cries and screams

From the warriors

Fallen on the battle field

Crimson carpets

Rolled out so nobly

For monarchs and royals

Who continue ruling kingdoms

Sacrificing lives

To expand horizons

Beyond the rays of the rising sun

The soldiers rally

Heat of sweating bodies

Awful scents of dirty uniforms

As the summer sun

Scorches us in merciless light

Many comrades fallen

What need is there to continue forward?

Why lay down my life?

For a king on a golden throne?

Who knows nothing of my family?

My home and neighbours

My soul's struggles to carry on?

It's been two years

Since this righteous war began

Two years, and my son has grown

Into a sweet young boy

Who doesn't know his own father

And what sadness I bear

That all the time I have had with him

Were the few moments he lay in my arms

The blessed day that he was born

A few days before I departed from home

I see his gentle smile

Grinning at me

Innocent and carefree

From the little squares of pictures

His mother sends regularly

Folded neatly in pure envelops

Captured at special moments of his life

His first step

His first birthday

His time at daycare

His toddler friends grinning

The same innocent giggles

That never comprehend suffering

Never witnessed the cruelty

That is our reality

With knowing eyes

And burdened hearts

But he will grow as quick as time races

For time never stops

Until it reaches the finish line

He will be a man, with his own children one day

Without knowing his father

To guide him in times of trouble and dismay

Those times when nothing seems logical

And life plunges into an insane nightmare

Dropping into a battlefield

And no amount of support or training

Prepares a man for the hardships of battle

I don't know when I will return home

Trapped in the present war

That rages on and on and on

As enemies flank our numbers

Murdering my beloved comrades

Left, right and center

I watch them fall

One by one

As blood covers them

In makeshifts coffins

Who knows if I will even survive

To ever meet my sons knowing eyes?

Even with doubts and fears

Burdening my ragged soul

I cannot surrender

To the weight of gravity's pull

Survival mode engaged

Until this terrible chapter comes to an end

I will continue to march on

My head forward to the rising sun

To carry on with what comrades remain

For the slightest possibility

That the final page of my life's story reads

...And he returned home to his son

To live happily ever after.

Is how we live

How we breathe

& what we give.

Survival mode

Is what we know

It’s what we think

& how we grow.

But think past survival

& simply live

Extend yourself

So you can give

Yourself & others a just reward

Instead of announcing that you’re bored.

Give yourself a chance to be

A chance to survive and soon you’ll see.

All the great things that you have

In this time so make it last

Survival.

I’ve been in survival mode all my life.

When is it time to meet the afterlife.

Tired of living like this.

When is it my turn to live in bliss.

What do I have to do to have some peace.

When is this pain gonna cease.

Survival is what me make of it.

Can I step back, take a break a bit.

Survival mode is draining.

I’m never ever gaining.

I must survive to get where I want.

But yet, all you do is taunt.

I’m strong, I will survive.

Because of you, I will thrive.

We are all in survival mode

Everyday, all the time

whether we know it or not.

Everything we do is about getting by,

sometimes it just feels easier than other times but its still just survival mode in another disguise, jollying us into continuing when sometimes we just want to quit.

We all live survival mode

some just hide the obvious better than others

and some don’t even know that they’re hiding.

Sometimes I think that they are the lucky ones

Cause surviving feels easy to them that don’t know they are dying each day

Its easy for those who don’t know what I say

when I say that survival mode is with us today

In each of our days in all of our ways, its not just a phase

Its just the way that it is.

Its not just for Gringos.