THE BEARER OF THE BAD NEWS

I have been hated and worse.

I have been despised.

Remorse,

I have been forced to feel,

For not who I am as a person,

But for what my job demands me to be.

The bearer of the bad news,

The partner of the grim reaper,

Are the names they call me by,

And I am no bad guy,

I tell you.

I am not the enemy,

If it wasn’t me,

There would be someone else,

‘cause someone had to step up.

To bring home the news,

That no one wants to carry.

I am, indeed, the bearer of the bad news,

As entitled by the haters in my common views,

I had thought to have seen,

The worst out there that’s been,

When I told the widows,

Their husbands couldn’t make it,

And watched them fall to the ground,

Like a damsel in distress,

Or when I told the parents,

About the burden of carrying,

The heaviest of the coffins,

Their own blood,

Their own child,

Over their own shoulders,

The silent tears rolling down the cheeks,

Choked me up at nights,

As I gasped for air,

The atmosphere didn’t have to offer.

That one time I had to tell,

A dreamer,

His dreams had fallen,

That he had to call it off,

The wedding, a day before,

Because his dream breathed her last.

She was there but in the past,

But the worst of it was when,

I brought along the news,

To the child who clung to me,

As soon as I stepped in,

Her little beady eyes,

Beaming full of hope,

As she whispered in my ear,

That broke me down to tears,

And even though it was a whisper,

It echoed in my head,

The words that slipped her tongue,

“DADA” she said,

Repeatedly,

That was the day I broke,

Into pieces I couldn’t collect.

My heart splintered open,

Splashing far away,

The only thing that remained,

Was an immense darkness

And pain,

The pain like nothing before,

The agony there was,

The despair I felt,

Shook the last of my courage,

And I knew it in my heart,

I would never be able to do this again,

As I walked back home,

With a heart so heavy,

I stooped under the weight,

I wondered why it had to be this way,

A human killing a human,

Freeing the soul of the other,

While having his own trapped,

In the darkness of the evil.

I pondered as I passed,

A Street that had bathed,

In the blood of a thousand fallen souls,

And in a distance the gunshots echoed,

The war was carried on,

The war of nothing.