Poetry Collection Fall 2014: VI. Old Poetry from a Thirteen-Year-Old

She is dressed in nothing but lace and icy stilettos.
 Aching, she awaits the onslaught of men craving for body. 
Unable to speak, she takes everything in, unwilling yet resigned.
She’ll bend over for a dollar more; she’ll touch him there, but at a cost;
he can pull her hair, call her a whore, abuse her for his pleasure;
All for the right money, dirty and worn, in her lingerie.
And when the sun rises, the light shines on her struggle for all to see, for all to cringe.
Life is a battlefield.  She is losing.

He is covered head to toe in dirt, sweat, and blood.
Helmet tight, gun to chest, he awaits the onslaught of men craving for bodies.
In a hail of gunfire, he must take life to preserve life.
 And when the sun rises, he presses his boot into the soil of his homeland;
The light shines on his heroism for all to see.
As his country salutes him, he only remembers
the long nights spent worrying his country forgot him;
if he’d make it through ‘til sunrise; or more hauntingly:
Have I widowed that wife?  Have I bastardized that son?
Both the man and woman lie awake that night,
Telling of life’s anomies.
Life is simply a battlefield that neither man nor woman can win.