The Planet Next Door Suite

I. Mars Has Gravity, Too

They said,
“Welcome home.”

As if home were a door
you step through
and not a planet whose atmosphere
you must relearn how to breathe.

Mars has gravity, too.

It just pulls sideways.

I left the forests.
Left the moss that knew my weight.
Left the men who called me Cappy
and told me though they loved me
that they wanted me to disappear,
and never talk to me again, not out
of any animosity, but to put the
nightmares all to rest, that’s why.

Left the mountain
where oak branches held a shattered leg,
knee and ankle together
with duct tape and her stubborn love.

Left that woman
who would not let me sit down
because she knew
if I rested
I would choose
earth over breath,
so 52 hours she mostly
carried me down a mountain
in a torrential downpour of
both rain and love slipping so very
naturally from Philia’s domain
into Aphrodite’s realm.

Left her twice.

Once to death.
Once to memory.

They said,
“Welcome home.”

But grocery stores hum like generators.
Fluorescent light feels tactical.
Every aisle a blind corner corridor.
Every squeaky cart wheel a patrol.

And coins—

Ugh, those coins.

They strike the counter
like brass kissing concrete
after a shot you cannot take back.

Clink.

Clink.

Clink.

Mars has gravity, too.

It pulls old reflexes
out of their graves.

There was a sweet older woman counting change.

A small, trembling-hands universe
of coupons and well-earned dignity.

And I mistook her poverty
for an ambush, not my brain,
but my confused AF heart.

I mistook the sound of survival
for the sound of extraction.

I mistook time
for a target.

And I became something sharp
in a place that required
softness.

Fifty dollars thrown
like a flare
into a quiet room.

Not generosity.

Not grace.

Just noise.

First I froze as my
heart rate slowed
in the parking lot,
trying to will myself
back in to give some
well-needed apologies,
and it wasn’t ego that
stopped me, but that
anxiety that turns me
statue no matter the
amends I so sorely
wish to make. Yep.

I drove home
as if I had fled
a battlefield.

Only this time
no one was shooting.

Only this time
the enemy was a memory
wearing the sound
of loose change.

When I was a boy
I overheard my parents,
“Charlie never came home
from the Netherlands, not
really…”, but I didn’t understand.

He crossed the street
all day long
looking for a bus
that had already left.
From his yard to the
bus stop, confusion,
looking all around,
back to his yard,
then right on back
to the bus stop across
the street once again.
I used to watch him
like he was a science
experiment, and I lived in a
Veterans’ Land Administration
neighbourhood, so I knew all
our neighbours fought in the war,
but what was going on with Charlie?

A few years later when
I could understand the story
of Charlie, yet not understand
where his thoughts had gone to.
I used to watch him
and think
that must be hell—
to survive your unit
and not survive yourself;
Sgt. Rock comics didn’t
teach about C-PTSD.

Mars has gravity, too.

It keeps you circling
the same corner
of your own mind.

I have crossed oceans of fire.
I have outlived two sons of my heart
who called me father of their own.
I have kissed women
goodbye
and meant it
in ways civilians
cannot pronounce.

I have cauterized my own flesh
with black powder.
Twice. Lucky for all those
John Wayne westerns on
the weekday CBC Late Night
movie, or I wouldn’t have
known that trick, and neither
as well would she have.

I have felt a supernova
inside my ankle
and chosen
to keep walking.

But today—

today I was defeated
by a handful of coins.

What is home
if your nervous system
refuses the address?

What is peace
if your pulse still patrols?

What is welcome
if gravity points
backwards?

They say trauma
like it is a diagnosis.

They say hypervigilance
like it is a flaw.

They say agoraphobia
like Latin
can baptize shame.

But I am not afraid of open spaces.

I am afraid
that the war
fits me better
than the world does.

I am afraid
that somewhere between
forest and funeral
between duct tape and wedding vows
between October and November
I missed the shuttle.

And this—

this quiet street
this pharmacy
this polite line of citizens—

is Mars.

Mars has gravity, too.

It pulls guilt
toward the floor.

It pulls memory
through the smallest sounds.

It pulls a man
toward the version of himself
he thought he buried.

But hear this—

Charlie never came home
because he did not know
he was gone.

I know.

I know enough
to grieve a stranger
in a checkout line.

I know enough
to drive back
in my mind
and wish I had said,

“Take your time, ma’am.”

I know enough
to feel horror
at my own sharpness.

That is gravity, too.

The pull
toward better.

Maybe coming home
is not landing.

Maybe it is orbit.

Maybe it is crossing the street to the bus stop
again
and again
until one day
you recognize
your own front door.

Maybe it is learning
that coins are not shell casings.

That fluorescent light
is not muzzle flash.

That a line
is just a line.

Mars has gravity, too.

But so does Earth.

And somewhere
between planets
a man stands
holding Abreva
and remorse
and the unbearable knowledge
that he wants
to be gentle.

That wanting—

that is home.

II. Earth Has Oceans, Too

They told me
Mars has gravity.

They forgot to mention
Earth has oceans.

And oceans
do not pull like gravity.

They wait.

I have lived on red soil.

Iron in the air.
Dust in the lungs.
Footprints that never quite fill in.

I learned to measure distance
in meters and wind,
even the rotation of the Earth.
In breath held.
In trigger pressure.

I learned the language of stillness
so well
that silence became
my native tongue.

Mars was simple.

See.
Decide.
Act.

No ambiguity.
No checkout lines.
No coins.

But Earth—

Earth is tidal.

It does not demand.

It laps at the shore
of a man
until he remembers
he is mostly water.

She knew that.

Jilly-Jill.

She did not drag me home
with argument.

She stood in the surf
and waited
for my armor to rust.

She let the salt
do its work.

She did not fight my gravity.
She outlasted it.

We were married
for less than a winter’s breath.

Six hours
beneath a Halloween moon.

Two priests.
Two witnesses.
Costumes and laughter
like children
daring death to blink first.

And then—

cold skin
before dawn.

The tide
going out
without warning.

Mars taught me
that loss is an explosion.

Earth teaches
that loss is erosion.

One is fire.
One is water.

Both reshape a man.

I have been forged
more times
than I can count.

Daughter.
Wife.
Comrades.
Bride.

Names carved into me
like coordinates.

But oceans do not carve.

They smooth.

They take the sharpest stone
and whisper against it
for years
until it can be held
without bleeding.

Today I stood in a line
and mistook sound
for danger.

Tomorrow—

maybe tomorrow
I will stand again
and hear only coins.

Maybe I will let an old woman
count her change
like a prayer.

Maybe, again, I will say,
“Take your time, Ma’am.”

Maybe that is how oceans work.

Not in miracles.

In repetitions.

Earth has oceans, too.

They do not care
how many wars you survived.

They do not salute.

They do not ask
what you have done.

They ask only this:

Will you sit still
long enough
to feel the tide?

I do not know
if I have come home.

But I know this—

I left the house.

I rang a doorbell
when I was afraid.

I held a dying woman
and did not run.

I wrote a poem
instead of breaking something.

These are not the acts
of a man
without a shoreline.

Mars has gravity.

Yes.

But Earth—

Earth has oceans.

And even stone
eventually
learns
to float.

~      ~      ~      ~      ~

I’ve written many of these things
for my journal, exercises from my
DND assigned psych-nurse, but
sharing online? It feels exploitive,
of those still suffering, of comrades
and lovers and daughters killed by
Putin’s madness, and I wonder if it’s
sympathy porn, oh, poor, poor me,
who still has the luxury of breathing
air… but Patricia reminded me what
I already knew, that secrets make us
sick, and experiences in life are all
worthy of sharing for the reader who
might understand, and if I play for
applause anyways soon that is all I
will ever be able to hear, so writing
these things just for me is fine, but
sharing them isn’t exploiting anyone,
it isn’t glorifying that which should
never be glorified, it’s like any other
poem, just sharing experiences and
feelings with no inherent right or wrong
in them… but if they are offensive to
anyone, I do apologize in advance.
I’ve nothing at all to be admired for,
of course admiration is the last thing
any former soldier wants because that
just feels awful for the only ones who
are truly worthy of any admiration or
pity are the ones part of the soil already
and forever after again, amen… but
maybe this little blurb is sympathy-
fishing in itself. But then maybe I don’t
need to be forgiven or justify anything
at all, as long as I am honest and want
to share for its own sake… don’t we all
who wrestle our pens want that. Yeah,
I guess maybe we all do. My Comp & Lit
101 prof told me that art is meant to
stand or fall on its own merits, that a
poet or writer should keep that air of
mystery, that any editorializing wrecks
the entire thing anyways, but I just
thought, or needed, to expand here,
y’know? I don’t want motives misunderstood,
even when, maybe especially when,
I don’t even know my own motives myself…