mudcaked

The shots came from rifles and machine guns and planes and then grenades exploded in whitehot blasts and arms and hands flew into the air and he was crying and fighting and desperate for escape and on some nights he was a boy again and he raced across the battlefields and through the chaos to the wide lawns of his childhood, looking for the dead bodies that he knew were there but he only ran and ran and ran until he grew into a man and his feet were again in the mudcaked boots and his hands covered in blood.