valued

I want to die for a cause,

just like you – act out war

in a desert. build things in the sand,

crawling around obstacles,

motion with my hands.

these eyes all wide, like yours.

like you, i want to die for some higher good,

hearing thunder from the finest bombs,

the walls pour down around

me. a scream drowned

out. to someone. to something.

the teeth bared, arching like yours.

i want to die for something worth my life.

to be there, not because i want to, but have

to, in the purest sense.

like you. ah, would that i were

a desert child. that it could mean

something. that a grey bird would freeze

my mind. that the desert explode

into glass pearls, opening red channels

thru my brain. that they spill

over on your plastic white face

moving thru a copper landscape

to step into the waters of the fountain

rivers, that were four but now are only two

beds of glass shards floating down to eden,

where it lies, still, beneath the gulf,

where you walk like drained out flesh

hanging in the cold rooms

till you disappear into the black,

thick liquid, and come out

to make them kill again.

ABOUT

A piece written in 2009, during the Iraq War, while studying at CSU Long Beach, a year before the release of Collateral Murder by WikiLeaks.

ALEX RODALLEC BIOGRAPHY

Writer and musician focusing mostly on violence, memory, and consciousness.