Memorial Day - Love vs. War

The early years of my emotionally abusive1^st marriage were particularly painful for me.  I was very suicidal then and I refer to those years as the ‘dark place’.  In 2005, I decided I needed to face and exorcise the demons that still haunted me (because I had not dealt with them) and I started to write poems that expressed the pain, anger, fear, sadness, etc. from that time.  Many of them are part of "Shadows on the Carpet".

In anticipation of this Memorial Day, I am sharing a poem from “The T. Collection – A Retrospective" which is a series of 15 poems about an extra-marital relationship spanning approximately one year. A relationship that saved my life – literally.  I resolved to highlight mostly positive elements in these short ‘vignettes’.

 

I am also sharing an audio of my reading of this poem with music and mix by Extra Sensory Perception (David Ames).

Love vs. War

LOVE vs. WAR

You came back from Vietnam

Severely battered but not broken

photo taken by T.

Aged beyond your years

You had lied about your age

To fight against the ideology

That occupied your native land

For a nation that gave you a home

In a country that was just the battleground

I recognized you as a special breed

You loved in ways I couldn’t appreciate

Giving yourself fully to me

While I was another’s wife

Willing to take on his responsibilities

Believing we could heal each other

Not realizing that his not loving me

Made it easier to manipulate me to stay

I never forgot that look on your face

The sound of your voice raging with pain

I believe something in you broke that day

Something the horrors of war couldn’t touch

But love had brought you to your knees

Made you vulnerable to an extreme

And I wasn’t certain that you could get back up

Yet I couldn’t regret choosing my son over you

I saw you once on the street five years later

Carrying your briefcase just as I remembered

I had just had my second child with him

I hesitated before turning the car around

Just long enough for you to disappear

A trace – an English Ovals cigarette butt – left behind

At home I pulled out photographs and jewelry

As I listened to tapes you had made for me – I wept

I often wondered what you did with your life

Between the time I saw you last and your death

© Alice Vedral Rivera - 2006