This is the submission that Razcoon and I worked on for the poetry pairs contest. Any advice would be much appreciated, thanks! The subject of this is exactly what it says in the title - enjoy!
Dear Anna,
I'm fighting for you.
I'm battling amongst this desolation.
Amongst each putrid layer of empty sky,
my stomach a cauldron of vomit about to boil over.
My face, stinging with acid sweat --
Others around me become empty shells in mere moments;
their lives leak out of the bullet wounds,
adorning each with the plastic eyes
of toy soldiers; dead dolls.
This has been life, over a year in the making.
Life in the sense that I'm still breathing,
that blood still flows through my veins.
This isn't truly living.
They told me I could see you, and our Eliza.
But you have been kept from me time and time again
as I was bound to this horrid place,
damned to meet my end thousands of miles from you.
Perhaps I was deserving of living through hell.
But I wondered, still, whether I'd come back home.
Could I have accepted happiness for myself?
It came to me then, after many times before
when answers would whizz by my head.
It caught me dead in the chest,
cutting through my being in the worst way.
I was cut, helpless, and no one came to my aid.
I fell, a single toy soldier among thousands.
Calmness overcame me, however.
A realization, a reality, had rushed at me
but I caught it like a bullet.
I know that all our lives together,
my troubles had been made yours
despite years of love and loyalty.
For myself, I cannot truthfully claim innocence.
Every bottle I drank, I knew too well in my drunken delirium
that it would end up in pieces over your lovely head.
I would take it all back if I could.
I know you loved me out of fear, but loved me all the same.
My love was harsh and not always loyal.
You were always hurt because of me;
the physical abuse or the girls I'd take into our home.
I had to have you, and I had to have them.
If only I wasn't so selfish, maybe I'd realize
I'd only be happy with you, Anna.
I know you don't regret Eliza
though I regret not being a father to her.
The cherubim face of an angel's daughter
was enough to melt my heart,
though I ceased to show her love
just like I ceased to show it to you.
All I hope you understand is that I really do love you.
Perhaps fate will separate us. I don't believe
that I belong in the same pure world you do.
Before I accept my toy soldier eyes
I would like to say
that I'm sorry.
For everything.
