“Write a poem about being courageous/heroic and giving your all in the face of certain death.”
Heart blasting
like a furnace too full.
My blood is red fuel,
that will ignite or chill
-but I will make it burn.
Fiery pain in me, around me.
I do this for my loving wife,
and spur my trigger finger
to spit fire and pain.
There is no place farther than home,
when you die.
I taste my own hot blood.
I remember my home.
Now, jackals crowd me,
and they die faster.
Staccato splatterings.
Their jagged justice
that shreds the weak
will not take the heat from my blood
as long as I have one drop
to spit in their cowardly faces.
Not enough.
They do not have enough,
to take me down to dirt,
where they took the others.
My wounds are now my enemy,
but my fear has been replaced
by my smeared flesh.
But I shall fight again,
so I may raise my eyes
to those who survived
to those who are safe.