Sad Eyed Boy from New Jesery

We ended up there, you and I,
for so many different reasons, but
up to that point, we had shared
equally of the sun the gun the terror.
I could see it sleeping in your glance,
the fear crusting in the corners of your eyes,
heard it in your silences when
the others bragged of bloody bush deeds done.

We couldn't do it and we knew it, you and I,
but there was the fear
of them seeing
how close panic lived to our surface,
just under our skins, you and I.
It took one to know one but
we had it dicked, you and I,
relatively speaking,
at the hospital one jump
removed from the killing until you
got drunk and pissed somebody off
and the next day you were gone
to the field to an aid station in the thick of 
the shit.

You returned one night and woke me and
you sat beside my bed in the butter yellow
light of the lantern and we talked, you and I, but
your hand shook as you sucked at the joint and
there was dirt in the creases of your skin.
You didn't have time for a shower, though.
You had to hurry back. There was a
bullet waiting to smash your face and
tear off the back of your head,
you and not
I.