BE a HERO to a HERO

I wrote this poem a long time ago. It is about some one who was very special to me. I was lying down in my sleeping bag somewhere in southern Iraq. I remember hearing choppers flying over and around me. I couldn't sleep. Not because of the noise I heard with my ears but rather, a noise heard inside of me. a noise that no one can run from, a noise coming from your heart. I sprang up grabbed my little green booklet that I carried at all times. Once I had found my flashlight I hunched over trying to cover the light as best I could. sitting Indian style I wrote:

God I feel so bound so captive so unfree
My emotions are like acid eating the inside of me
I can't touch her, but I want to touch her
I want to feel her near me, but she's to far away
I feel bound up, wound up ready to explode
I want to run my fingers across her eyebrows
run my nose across her cheek
Have conversations for hours and get lost because its deep
I want to be with her in crowds forgetting everyone is there
Id take her out to dinner
but I wont eat Ill just sit at the table and stare
Conversations with a kiss at the end
No matter how we try we cant seem to be more than friends
Reaching, reaching I can feel her fingertips
Its like were face to face both behind a chain-linked fence
Tips of fingers touching but I would rather touch her lips
Just to sit and look into her eyes as she speaks
to reach across the table and touch her hand
it would weaken our knees
Confusion and pain play the sonata of heartbreak in my soul

This girl gave me hope every day. On days when I had nothing to hope for, live for, only to die for. She gave me a reason. If nothing else I would see her again. Whenever we got the chance to speak she let me talk her ear off about nothing she could understand but guess what, she listened. I have seen first hand what a soldier with no hope and a loaded weapon can do to themselves. It is enough to make your very soul lean over in sadness. Ladies, anyone if you have or know some one in harms way, be a rock for them. You will have to give more than you ever have, but they give more. Being in that land with no love and no hope is a burden no man can carry

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