He Did Not Come Back the Same, Part I
When Laurie was just eighteen years of age
she fell in love with a brazen young man,
rode his own bike, knew just what to say,
ever quick with a joke was her Stan,
oh, the adventures that those two had planned.
Though both their families thought they were crazy,
they married young and Stan joined the army.
The first year was glorious between them,
the two must have made love every night,
Laurie was a sucker for uniformed men,
Stan never tired of clutching her tight,
on the town the two were quite a sight.
For a year Stan served on that large base,
but the real world soon darkened their days.
Stan was deployed to fight terrorist scum
in the bare mountains of Syria,
he learned very quick to live by the gun,
to survive the evil men of Asia,
so much different than fair Pennsylvania.
Suddenly the world seemed not so funny,
his own best friend died, a cruel tragedy.
Laurie herself was having a hard time,
barely twenty and her love was away,
she needed attention, was hard to find,
many times she was tempted to stray,
for eighteen months she waited for the day
that her husband would be again in her arms,
back in his home and away from all harm.
She was standing there on the tarmac
with other families, desperately waiting,
they saw their loved ones hauling duffle bags,
and soon all was a mess of embracing,
from months of dread anticipating,
but in Stan’s embrace something felt off,
she looked in his eyes and something seemed lost…
In the three weeks that followed it became clear
that Stan had not come back home the same,
he didn’t smile as much, nor endear,
and didn’t thrill to the sound of her name,
he seemed generally on the wane.
Gone was the bold man she’d fallen for,
he’d died overseas, back there in the war.
When he read books he’d just roll his eyes,
say,”Self-centered folk so fond of complaint.”
When he’d see young people larking about
he’d say,”Damn fools need to learn self-restraint.”
Was he serious or just in pain?
Laurie knew that something needed to break,
this grave-minded Stan she could no longer take.
After a year of trying to make it,
Laurie just could not take any more,
summed up her courage, and all of her grit,
said,”You’re not the man that I once adored,
and pretending is becoming a chore.
I no longer want to live something fake,
I think it is best that we separate...”
CONTINUES IN PART II.
|