"Vows Taken at the Altar of My Sorrow"

By Steve Callahan

vows taken at the altar of my sorrow
with this pen I thee wed
a marriage of loss and pain
binding us together forever
I write the words down
to make it make sense
to make it go away
so then dearly beloved
we are gathered here to bear witness
of a good man
a strong man
the very best of us
weighed down with burdens
I’ll never know
who shouldered his pack
until it broke his knees and the insurmountable weight
crushed him
but let us not remember him for the one thing he did wrong
no
no, no, no
I could spend my forever
writing sonnets of how
you left us and writing
rhymes of why
you thought the coffin was
more comfortable
than a bed
each stroke of my pen
or click-clack of my keyboard
or the muted thump of my thumb
typing words on a phone screen
creates one more story of you to tell
one more line of you to read
one more whisper of you to be heard
in this I make you immortal
with this pen, I raise the dead.

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Steve Callahan is a writer, a poet and a former Marine infantryman. Bursting with creative efforts, Steve runs a poetry site, podcast, and is heavily involved in PB Abbate.  Steve’s writing covers his experiences in the Marines, his deployment to Helmand and the psychological peaks and valleys of an infantryman’s life. Follow him here.

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