Dip your fingers into the flood waters, into the ash at the alter of the forest.

Or is it an urn?

Two lines dragged across each cheek,
this is war.

But you are a pacifist so you don't go.
You stay home and read your books but the blood starts to pool around you anyway and now you're in the mirror up to your waist in red and the red is rising and the black is streaming down your cheeks and the head of a cow is in one hand and the heart of a baby is in the other.

At least you're not hungry.

You burn bones to keep your own cool.

At least you're not hot.

The time of cold winters and lazy summers where you sit on the balcony and sip ice water with the dog on your lap and the sun in your heart is over.

There are no seasons now.

There is just war paint and furnace.

Do you feel yourself choking?
Do you feel yourself burning?

You do but you don't care.

At least you never went to war.