“There is nothing you can say that would change my mind,”
my neighbor’s son yelled from the 21st floor balcony
of our apartment building. He had come back from war
not too long ago, with one less leg and seven extra scars.
He had not slept in months. He couldn’t close his eyes
without seeing the face of his last kill drenched in blood.
His ears rang often, like the whistles of the desert breeze,
and his hands shook like a conductor without a stick.
He had seen too much and had taken so many lives.
I remembered him as he was before he went to war,
before innocence flew out of his eyes.
“There is nothing you can say that would change my mind,”
he yelled. A small crowd gathered around the building.
The crescendo of sirens palpitated his heart. Flashbacks
of unwanted memories marched through his mind:
grenade, broken bones, fire, bullet holes, dynamite.
His mom and sister wailed and his dad
begged him to stop. A thick marine layer covered the sky
and camouflaged the sun. Rain drizzled on his forehead
and seeped into his eyes. He jumped with his arms stretched out
like an umbrella, cutting through the clouds.
