Letter To the Marine Who Lives in a Tent

You scare me. I saw you round the corner
Bag full of food, stumbling through the mist
Of another grey Syracuse day.
Your midnight bucket hat looks new,
You yell at young couple happy Labor Day.
I look up from my book and reciprocate.

You sit with me to “cleanse the demons from you.”
Before you were settled in your rust red seat
You exposed me as military.
Because we always recognize our own.

Within the first few minutes of sitting across me
You tried your hardest to swallow fistfuls of tears.
Before I can respond you tell me about your divorce,
How you were going to kill yourself today.

Your words are a current I could never swim against,
You tell me you’ve had to give your handguns
To family because you would hurt yourself.
All tension in my body releases feeling like I float
On my back to the natural conclusion of admitting
I had attempted.

You are erratic, snorting, and fidgety but
Ask my age: 36, 19, 29. Close enough…
I ask you where you were deployed
You saw your marine unit and show me
The “purple heart” on your left bicep
That looks more like a thin lined
Black heart drawn by a child.

Our bond is suicide
But you felt like you had to prove
The worth of your intrusive thoughts
By turning your body into a display.

So, I’m forced to exhibit your bullet wounds,
Witness your words paint the knife slash
On your back. See the sunken frame of the classic
Faded marine corps tattoo on the left shoulder.

I ask you if you had anyone
But you divert about a crack house.

Before I left you told me about how you killed
In the name of God, how he saved you.
I'll be honest this Syracuse weather doesn’t appear to
Show any break and God abandoned me long ago.You scare me. I saw you round the corner
Bag full of food, stumbling through the mist
Of another grey Syracuse day.
Your midnight bucket hat looks new,
You yell at young couple happy Labor Day.
I look up from my book and reciprocate.

You sit with me to “cleanse the demons from you.”
Before you were settled in your rust red seat
You exposed me as military.
Because we always recognize our own.

Within the first few minutes of sitting across me
You tried your hardest to swallow fistfuls of tears.
Before I can respond you tell me about your divorce,
How you were going to kill yourself today.

Your words are a current I could never swim against,
You tell me you’ve had to give your handguns
To family because you would hurt yourself.
All tension in my body releases feeling like I float
On my back to the natural conclusion of admitting
I had attempted.

You are erratic, snorting, and fidgety but
Ask my age: 36, 19, 29. Close enough…
I ask you where you were deployed
You saw your marine unit and show me
The “purple heart” on your left bicep
That looks more like a thin lined
Black heart drawn by a child.

Our bond is suicide
But you felt like you had to prove
The worth of your intrusive thoughts
By turning your body into a display.

So, I’m forced to exhibit your bullet wounds,
Witness your words paint the knife slash
On your back. See the sunken frame of the classic
Faded marine corps tattoo on the left shoulder.

I ask you if you had anyone
But you divert about a crack house.

Before I left you told me about how you killed
In the name of God, how he saved you.
I'll be honest this Syracuse weather doesn’t appear to
Show any break and God abandoned me long ago.