for eli eli came back from iraq and tattooed a teddy bear onto the inside of his wrist above that a medic with an iv bag above that an angel but eli says the teddy bear wont live and i know i dont know but i say i know cause elis only twenty four and ive never seen eyes further away from childhood than his eyes old with a wisdom he knows id rather not have elis mother traces a teddy bear onto the inside of my arm and says not all casualties come home in body bags and i swear id spend the rest of my life writing nothing but the word light at the end of this tunnel if i could find the fucking tunnel id write nothing but white flags somebody pray for the soldiers somebody pray for whats lost somebody pray for the mailbox that holds the official letters to the mothers fathers sisters and little brothers of michael 19 steven 21 john 33 how ironic that their deaths sound like bible verses the hearse is parked in the halls of the high school recruiting black brown and poor while anti war activists outside walter reed army hospital scream 100 000 slain as an amputee on the third floor breathes forget me nots onto the window pain but how can we forget what we never knew our sky is so perfectly blue its repulsive somebody tell me where god lives cause if god is truth god doesnt live here our lies have seared the sun too hot to live by there are ghosts of kids who are still alive touting m16s with trembling hands while we dream ourselves stars on survivor another missile sets fire to the face in the locket of a mother whose son needed money for college and she swears she can feel his photograph burn how many wars will it take us to learn that only the dead return the rest remain forever caught between worlds of shrapnel shatters body of three year old girl to welcome to mcdonalds can i take your order the mortar of sanity crumbling stumbling back home to a home that will never be home again eli doesnt know if he can ever write a poem again one third of the homeless men in this country are veterans and we have the nerve to support our troops with pretty yellow ribbons while giving nothing but dirty looks to their outstretched hands tell me what land of the free sets free its eighteen year old kids into greedy war zones hones them like missiles then returns their bones in the middle of the night so no one can see each death swept beneath the carpet and hidden like dirt each life a promise we never kept jeff lucy came back from iraq and hung himself in his parents basement with a garden hose the night before he died he spent forty five minutes on his father s lap rocking like a baby rocking like daddy save me and dont think for a minute he too isnt collateral damage in the mansions of washington they are watching them burn and hoarding the water no senators sons are being sent out to slaughter no presidents daughters are licking ashes from their lips or dreaming up ropes to wrap around their necks in case they ever make it home alive our eyes are closed america there are souls in the boots of the soldiers america fuck your yellow ribbon you wanna support our troops bring them home and hold them tight when they get here