I’ve walked where silence eats the day
Where Helmand’s dust refused to rest
Where silent eyes still held my aim
Still pressed like questions on my chest

 

I wore the uniform, and bore its weight

I aimed, then framed the war in glass

And now my lens, once worn en route
Records the ghosts that do not pass

 

Wake America, your dream runs red
Its stars stitched tight on coats of trade
You do not count the actual dead
Just echoes of the kills we made

 

You gave me medals, gave me form
But did not stay to watch me shake
You taught me war, then called it norm
But I have learned what myths we make

 

I saw the flags at half-mast
Then watched them raised to boost a sale
We grieved in headlines, faint and brief
While silence swallowed every tale

 

O Soldiers of Commerce, proud and brave
Who chant the anthem of the free
Who dress your dead in stripes and praise
While whistling songs of victory

 

Have you seen the flags that line our stores
They flutter, stitched with shame and gold
They were not raised in foreign wars
But bought, returned, and cheaply sold

 

You leaders cloaked in suited lies
Who raise the toast but dodge the toll
You send your sons beneath the skies
Then claim the wreckage fed the soul

You do not march, you do not bleed
You draw your lines on others' skin
You name the war, then plant the seed
And call the harvest discipline