Requiem

He was a pacifist; he had no interest in war.
Things change, of course.
There’s not always a when, where, and why.
Still, he wonders.

He remembers home, thinks about his family.
He wants to smell the kitchen, the dog, his fiancee’s perfume,
but now it’s only blood and gunpowder.

He loads the firearm he despises,
and the thoughts that drift through his head vanish.
He watches someone fall, and then two more,
and he starts to recognize a pattern.

What feels like twenty-three years are only moments.
He sees his childhood, his high school days, and what could have been.
He quickly whispers a prayer for his mother,
and falls with the rest, always remembered.