I've been tearing at the flesh,
straining from behind in all the wrong carriages
- those of bodies and of steel.

I'm close to recovered
and the muscle is returning
I breathe the heavy summer heat
and run

I am tanned
and I am high on his drug and her drug
and the next drug
- I wander home at 8 in the morning
with fire in my lungs

I am furious with grief and love.

The publisher set a deadline
so I rifled through the old exchanges
looking for a hook.
I found the letters sent from Anna,
all the lust and light and guts.
I was stunned to discover
that there had been such a thing as love
and fell for us, once more,
and fell for good.

I am finishing the book
and then I am leaving this pleasant life of gentle death.
I am heading back to war
with my rebuilt prowess for violence
and my duty
and my fury
and a promise that I will not return
with this face
or this name
or this perpetual sense of longing and of loss.

I am ready for the heat of the bush and the loneliness
of mercenary fucks
in the forsaken places where life is quick
and death comes with a bang;
I am ready to try again
to annihilate my aching past.