This poem was an exploration on the way guilt and grief can settle into the sediment of a family, and how love becomes another form of survival.

I wrote it thinking about a specific conflict but it could be about any generation of soldiers, in any war, returning different than they when they left. Unrecognizable to themselves, and the people who love them the most. Every war leaves behind a version of that story — and, in one way or another, we all grow up in its echo.

This poem is for all the fathers who came back just men, after all.

Author’s Note: If you’d prefer to read along, find the original post here.

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