I count the days before you come back to me.
The light blue clock ticks, ticks, ticks,
Measuring the distance between us in seconds.
Scrawling script dances across paper--
I have put my soul into these words because
I cannot find yours.
The people across the street are having a party.
I hear laughter when there should be none.
…
You can see the reflections of the clouds in my eyes,
Drops of rain falling through my pupils
From too many hours spent looking out the window,
Hoping to see you trudging back.
But if you could see inside my head,
You would see battlefields fragrant with a stench of death,
The ground seeped with pools of red.
I can see your face, blank with surprise,
Your hand still on the base of your gun.
…
Can you hear me?
I feel like you’re somewhere in this house where I can’t find you,
But you’re close enough to know that I wish you were with me.
That telegram must be lying.
You must be returning. There is no other choice.
I cannot wrap my mind around that grim possibility,
The chance that I will never see you again.
I can almost feel your presence here.
I’ll pretend not to hear this voice that keeps telling me,
He’s gone.
Good-bye, brother.
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This really hit me close to home as my grandfather fought in the war and he recently passed away. We were close but all that is besides the point
This will be a relatively short review but I hope it can also be sweet
Here we go;

I did find myself close to tears on a few occasions as I read, especially at the end, oof. You really know how to jerk tears. All in all, and I think you can tell, I /really/ liked this poem, even though it made me feel :/
I will be bookmarking this for sure and reading it every once in a while
Keep up the great work and I thank you for sharing this with us all!
Personally, as a fan of /hearing/ words in writing, your use of the ticking of the clock really appealed to be from the very start and I may now be positively biased, but oh well
I can't really say a whole lot on individual parts of the poem, but as a whole I think you created something that does its job fantastically well. As I was reading and now that I'm done and writing a review, I saw and still see a woman whose sweetheart was drafted or volunteered and went overseas. Of course this is a done-to-death subject, but you made it fresh to read for me anyway
This is Kaos here for a review!
This first stanza is interesting. I like how you start out with this and the first line is a strong hook to have, so I commend you on that. The main problem I have with this stanza is the punctuation and the flow, which is choppy. Not all the lines have to end after they start. Let them build onto each other and expand, because whether you think so or not, how you use punctuation plays a part in how the reader perceives and reads the poem. The first half of the stanza was more interesting than the second. How I'm interpreting it thus far is that someone or something is going on that makes a person absent. I'm assuming it's a war because of the title but I don't think I would know without that this early on. I can feel the tone and atmosphere, and I think that things are subtly placed that give that off, but I want a little more.
This feels like a letter in poem form and I like how down-to-earth it feels. The subtly of the last stanza is erased by this being more blunt with what it's trying to get across. I thought it was doing better not giving everything right to the reader and now you kind of destroyed what you had with the first stanza. The first half of this is weaker than the second, though overall I didn't particularly like it, but I didn't /hate/ it either. The down-to-earth-feeling is the only reason I really have to care for this and I suggest putting more thought into or more emphasis on emotional impact. The last two lines does this in a way.
The poem went downhill from the start, but it definitely has potential to become something stronger. I like the idea of the brother being lost in the house, but I didn't like the execution of this. It felt abrupt and weak, ending the poem a little too quickly and I'm not going to touch on punctuation again because I already suggested fixing that, but I will go back to what I said on emotional impact. Some things are meant to be told bluntly, but I don't think the brother's death was supposed to be. Don't give everything away by just telling us, use the images and figurative language that I know you're capable of (earlier in the poem is what I'm referring to). Something that I wanted to throw a suggestion in is comparing it to a game of hide and seek and perhaps having the last lines be relating to that and the speaker not ever being able to find her brother. The first part of him somehow being inside the house can be salvaged, but I suggest changing the second half of it.
I hope I helped and have a great day!