You can’t let them just die
just fade from made at home
memory like thoughts about
lunch, like an idea once had
…you can’t let them just die
and never have been because
they have and were…are
…most important is “are”
because they stepped up
they stood up, they stepped
forward when stepping was
death when saying yes was
a cruel and inhuman
punishment but gladly taken
forsaken, maybe mistaken
they stepped right the fuck up
and knowingly put their beating
pumping heart between you
and in the way of a bullet a
fragment a grenade a bomb a
torpedo a missile a mine, they
stepped right the fuck up and
maybe complained maybe
bitched maybe moaned maybe
cried a little at night when
darkness hides tears the best
they did what they did and
didn’t ask you a hundred or 5
years later for thanks for sad
appreciation of what was lost
they went, they agreed, they
saw vicious reality for itself and
they stepped right the fuck up
so you can’t just let them die
you must remember them, you
must think of them and know
that their beating pumping
hearts stood in the way of
the life you know now and
what could have been.