The High Road

THE WAR RAGING WITHIN

He sat there with blood on his hands

blood of another man

A man, who now lay at his feet

his body cold, eyes unseeing.

Who was he, the man who lay dead.

He didn't know, but it was said

that, he was a man with a family

Maria his wife and little Emily;

he was a good man, this man

an ideal citizen of the country

he paid his taxes, paid his bills

loved his wife and his kid

and yet he lay there dead

on a crimson river bed.

The man who killed him,

sat there and watched him

just for a few minutes and

then he walked past him

he had a battle to win

but he knew

the man would come back at night

to haunt him

just like the dozens before him

whom he had killed

not for money, not out of greed

it was the law

kill or be killed;

This was war, a bigger war raging within

his conscience and his animal instinct

he didn't have the time to wait and settle this

he needed to move on

kill many more

kill till no one else was left

and when it was done,

he could go home, to his wife and son.

And then he felt it,

the shattering pain,

within his chest, his heart had been wounded.

he dropped down to the ground

and wondered what death would be like;

he saw the faces of the men he killed

and he knew, now they could never haunt him.

flashes of his life passed before him,

his mother and his father, when he was little

his school, his teachers, and the woman he loved

their marriage, and the son he was proud of.

And then the pain was gone

he lay there, unseeing

his body cold.

And the man who killed him,

watched him for a few seconds,

and then walked past him.