(File photo)
Submissions for Month of the Military Child by Mr. Wagner’s ELA-12 A2 students.
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The Heart is a Suitcase
The map is full of fading marks,
Brief stays in rooms that never quite belong.
The garden seeds are left in paper bags,
Seasons that will bloom for someone else.
Each window shows a different coast,
A temporary view through rented glass.
The walls are bare, forbidden to be scarred
By nails or height-marks made in permanent ink.
The heart becomes a suitcase, light and thin,
Avoiding weight that’s hard to move.
A life defined by routes and tape,
With nowhere left to name a certain home.
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Month of the Military Child
From an outside view, it’s a very strange tradition to observe
A holiday never known, yet now important
Meeting kids who have never come home
A silent holiday
Changing homes
A month long holiday that most have never heard of before
Meeting friends who have been to all but one land mass
Warming month for a warm holiday
An ode to memories
A strange group
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My life as I have known it
April comes and goes like every month,
But for some people it’s not quite the same.
The thump of boots calling from afar, and forcing goodbyes
The warning of departure and unrooting lives
The broken faces, putting on a front,
The convincing mask that people pass by
I turn my back, and march onward
Expected to follow my family, with no hesitation
A yawning crevice between me and my past
The echo of a life I once lived.
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Suitcase
My life is in a suitcase,
Every few years,
We are packing and moving,
Constantly packing and unpacking.
Packing my life away,
Again and Again.
Maybe one day I can unpack for good,
In a place where I can settle,
Not having to worry about the suitcase again.
When my life is not packed away in a suitcase.
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Trees of Memories
Growing up in my house
The memories begin to form
The memories continue to grow
Like the trees in my backyard
As I move away from home
The trees may be cut down
But new trees will grow
Everywhere I go
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The Airport
The airport is my home
The fresh aroma of coffee
People rushing to their destination
Is more familiar than where I sleep
My life packed away in an instant
Never sure what our next destination will hold
My family is my constant
My one source of security
The lighthouse amidst the tempest
The rising sun of each morning
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Vantage Point
The reality, the experience, the large disconnect.
For the outside world is now obstructed.
With a perspective others cannot stand in.
As seeing more can make one focus less.
And the experience loses its shine.
We all coalesce our views from fragments.
But I have seen the wider pool of thought.
As no place lasts forever for me.
And so this vintage point of the world
Has blinded me from the place I am standing.
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The Difference
April comes around
and people talk about strength and moving on
about boxes, goodbyes, new schools
that isn’t my story
my parent serves too, just in a different way
same town, same room, same view each day
no big moves, just quiet work behind the scenes
still part of it, even if it looks different
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Home is where the heart is
Cardboard boxes fill the room
A place where we once laughed and played
Is now but a hollow shell
Of its once lively self
Keeping a brave face because
Soon, a new laughter will be found
Home can be here
Home can be there
Home can be anywhere
Home is a feeling in your heart
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Together again
Long table crowded
Time melts in a brief embrace
Generations blend
Moments stitched in golden thread
Carried home in quiet hearts
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Farewell Friends
I watch as my house fades
My time has been paid
Farewell my friends
Time for this friendship to end
I arrive at a new home
Time does not pass
It is moving time
My home never stays
The cycle repeats
It never ends
Farewell Friends
We may never meet again
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Like Father, Like Son
Generations of sons, following their Fathers
Joining the fight to protect our United States
But to also protect their families fates
Sacrificing their lives for their wife, sons, and daughters
But my own dreams of careers are farther
I don’t dream of war, to be shipped back in a crate
I dream of working with electrons, and the flow of power they create
An enlisted life isn’t for me, but their sacrifice I still honor.
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My Missed Opportunity
Most military kids travel
Going from place to place
Checking out all the marvels
I wish I could have done the same
Only been to one place
16 years, Japan seemed rather tame
I always wanted to experience Europe
The food and wonders of other nations
But that dream of going never able to develop
Now my time as a military child is up
Just experiencing Japan and the States was not enough.
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Choose
I pack my life into boxes as I usually do, but
This time it is a different feeling
No military base waiting on the other
Side, no gate to drive through when it is time to
Go home, no ID check, just a campus that I will soon
Call home, for once I get to choose my
Path and what I do.
I keep thinking someone will tell me what to do
Along the way
But all I hear is “choose”, a word so simple but yet so
Heavy, maybe this is normal, maybe I am
supposed to feel this way, but for the first time in my life, I am not leaving…
I am arriving.
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Hard to keep
I meet a lot of people
and learn their names fast,
but most of them fade
like places I used to live.
We say we’ll stay friends,
we mean it at the time,
but distance gets louder
and texts get shorter.
It’s not hard to meet people,
it’s hard to find real ones,
the kind who stay with you
even when everything else changes.
