by Poetic Veteran
I see ghosts in the mirror,
not the kind that haunt—
the kind that wait,
quiet in the corners of the mind.
Uniform creases fade like old photographs,
sand still caught between the years,
letters never sent
to the ones who stopped asking.
Time—
it’s a thief in dress blues,
saluting before it steals another sunrise.
We measure it in scars and empty chairs,
in names that echo without reply.
But I return,
to trace the outlines of who I was—
a soldier, a poet, a soul stitched back together
with rhythm and resilience.
In the reflection,
I see not what was lost,
but what refused to disappear.
Even the forgotten
leave fingerprints on the future.