This is how I left the war.

This is how I turned the words

How I couldn’t grow my hair

How I couldn’t free the birds.

Here is where I start to hide.

Here is where I closed my eyes

How I couldn’t hold your hand.

How I couldn’t loosen ties.

That was how I saw my life.

That was how I faced the day.

In the towns where I was born

In the friends I turned away.

This is how I leave the years.

This is where I fall.

Cracked and speckled, National Health.

Pictured on a wall.