A Mother's Love

Morbid thoughts of happiness trail through my head
morbid,
because those moments are long dead
they died when my son
my hope,
my love,
my joy,
my little soldier,
they died when he died

Sometimes I laugh at my memories
but I stop when I realize they're never coming home
I used to dream of seeing my grand children
running around my house, through my door ways
but there is no hope for that now
no use of hanging onto something
that can never come true

Sometimes I wake up in the morning
and check the calendar
to see when he's coming home
only to realize it's stuck on January 2007
on the 19, when I got the message
I'd never had the heart to turn the page
It was somehow just too final.

I even kept his room the same way
posters of his favorite bands on the wall
bed unmade, favorite CD in the CD player
I used to come in and lay on his bed
and listen to it, cuddling his pillows
not anymore.
In there I can feel his presence.
I don't want him to hear me crying.

The perfect little boy
the most loving, the most hopeful
the moment I heard his sergeant on the phone, I knew
I dropped the phone
and could do nothing but stare out the window
and see him playing on the swings,
like he did when he was a boy

Every Friday, I go to visit him
in the family lot of the cemetery
and every time I can't help but think
it's my fault, my son is dead
I let him go, I let them give him a gun
it was all me
I couldn't protect my own son.

I always walk silently to his grave
and sit by him
pouring his favorite sodas
in front of his grave stone
and reading the words there

"Johnny, we miss you
we love you, we hold you in our hearts
we see you in all our waking hours
and in our dreams
we wait forever to see you again."

Every time I read them
I cry, every time I read them
I know how true it is
and I know I must stick it out for him
Every time the truth sinks in deeper
My Johnny's never coming home
I'll never see him reading under a tree
never yell at him to turn his music down
never say hello to him after a long day of work

I'll never see his smile again.