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.