Tonight's Poet Corner: The Reluctant Soldier

The Reluctant Soldier
by Belinda Roddie

I am behind the barbed wire
with a hand grenade locked in my fist,
and I am waiting for the revolutionaries
on this side to decimate the revolutionaries
on the other side. The screaming is intense.
The crying is worse. The bile rises in
my throat, and I dream of being anywhere
else but this contemporary war zone. The
barbed wire is in truth a computer screen,
the hand grenade a wedding ring. Cruelty
oozes in black text from every comment page
and social media outlet, but I will not detonate.
I will still kiss my wife before we go
to sleep. I will still use the pen that is mightier
than the sword. I will break through
the barbed wire, the battle cry ripping
from my lungs, and make a better world
out of no man's land.