Scaffolding Brian Turner’s What Every Soldier Should Know
If you hear the agonized sigh after a hollow text tone,
it could be a candy crush request, or it could be from you know who.
Always tread three am conversations lightly;
lest you get embraced in the sweet chokehold of loneliness.
What is your middle name? Is rarely the deepest secret.
It means Unfold! Tell me your bloodied red and buried desires.
You must be tired is effective.
It means Are you sure you really mean that?
I miss you means many things.
Dig a trench between the muddied lines, for many times it means boredom.
You think you will hear an artillery truck racing, rattling, crashing towards you
Not so the friend, who can flatten you too.
There are borrowed cologne stained sweatshirts,
and sand from twilights under shadowy mountain moons.
There are memories of being lifted over a rickety fence
to feel cold chlorine lick our bodies, in forbidden fun.
Conscience hammering alongside a straightjacketed heart,
He is only playing with you.
Men dragging their hearts as small pets on long tattered leashes,
walk up, circle their arms and whisper everything but I want You.
There are men who earn a crowd of followers
by looking good, five thousand by playing a good game.
Small boys in big looming bodies,
become old men whose ageless alluring eyes will forever roam—
and any one of them
may roll you over tomorrow.
The Portfolio 