No Room For Fear

Hot desert days, scared— but can’t show it. Eyes sharp, hands steady, but the heart’s in a fist, shoved somewhere behind the plate carrier. Brothers have my back, and my heart. They’re the reason I walk forward when every instinct tells me to run. We don’t say much— just nods, tight grips, the kind of silence that means I got you without ever saying a damn word. Guns boom, lights flash, a brother lost. Time stops— but not enough. You can’t cry when you’re returning fire. You can’t scream when your teeth are clenched tight around the pain. Told a brother’s dead. A burden I carry like it’s strapped to my back. Lunch I had with him the day before. Laughed like fools over ty coffee and a bag of jerky. Now his seat’s empty. Now I sit with that silence. A band on my wrist with his name. Black letters, white steel. Forever with me— when I eat, when I sleep, when I wonder why I’m still here. I made it back. But I didn’t come back whole. Some parts stayed buried in that sand— some I left on purpose. I walk through the store and wonder how the hell everyone else seems so normal. I smile for him— because he’d want me to live. But I cry for me, because I don’t know how. The world moved on. I’m still standing still. And some nights— I wish I hadn’t made it home at all.