Wounded, But Still Going

I came to watch the sky break open, red and gold above the crowd, but the first blast split the evening and the past came screaming loud. One second I was standing there, the next I wasn't home. The night turned into burning dust, the crowd became unknown. My daughter's voice was somewhere near, but far beyond my reach. My body locked inside a war my mouth could never speak. I saw the light through shattered glass, each color turned to flame. A celebration in the sky became the day I cannot name. I know I'm here. I know I'm safe. But my body remembers Another place. The thunder hit beneath my skin, the ground moved in my bones. Every flash became a warning, every cheer became a drone. I tried to tell myself the truth, this is not then, this is now. But memory has teeth and claws, and it dragged me anyhow. Back to smoke and metal air, back to blood and sand, back to prayers that had no words, back to shaking hands. Twenty minutes under fire while the world just watched the show. Nobody saw the war return, nobody else could know. I'm wounded, but still going, With a battlefield inside. Still breathing through the wreckage Of a war that never died. I'm standing in the present With the past against my throat. The sky was full of freedom, But my body smelled the smoke. I barely slept when morning came, the battle stayed awake. Adrenaline like broken glass kept moving through my veins. My bones ached like I'd carried every blast beneath my skin, like some old buried battlefield had opened up again. This is how the war comes home, not marching through the door, but hiding in a sudden sound that throws you to the floor. It bends the light, it twists the room, it makes the safe feel strange. It takes a sky of holy fire and turns it into pain. I know I'm here. I know I'm grown. I know the dead Are not alone. I know the night Has passed away. I know the date. I know the day. But knowing doesn't stop the flood. Knowing doesn't calm the blood. Knowing doesn't close the wound When thunder wears a soldier's tune. So I breathe like I am climbing Out of rubble, out of flame. I speak my name into the dark Until my body does the same. I'm wounded, but still going, With a battlefield inside. Still breathing through the wreckage Of a war that never died. I am not weak because I tremble. I am not lost because I cry. Some men come home from battle With the war still in their eyes. The sky can split wide open. The old ghosts can start showing. But I am here, and I am breathing...Wounded, but still going. Shaking, but not gone. The war came back to claim me, but I held on. The war came back to claim me, but I held on.