The Will To Survive
by Michael Doyle

In a soldier's final score,
Only the dead know the end of war.
Shrouded in the sadness of despair,
Life is hobbled by a world so unfair.

We keep on fighting shadows
Though each of us is certain and knows
The infernal war ended long ago.
Or, at least that is, we should know.

They sold us a line about glory,
But we all knew this to be a story.
You had fought for me, I had fought for you.
Truth be told, that's all we'd ever do.

Though the enemy would not yield,
I carried you from the battlefield.
Uncertain that we could make it,
I was determined, at worst, to fake it.

The generals told us what to do.
The rest, it seems, was up to me and you.
The battle had started at twilight,
And wouldn't let up until the morning light.

They sold us a line about glory,
But we all knew this to be a story.
You had fought for me, I had fought for you.
Truth be told, that's all we'd ever do.

Rumors said the woods were full of ghosts.
That sometimes scared us the most.
To think that we might never leave,
It was more than we could bear to believe.

Some generals swore by their priority,
As if to hold their place in history.
In another life, this might have been a crime.
This, however, was not that time.

They sold us a line about glory,
But we all knew this to be a story.
You had fought for me, I had fought for you.
Truth be told, that's all we'd ever do.

The chances that we took kept us alive.
Those and God helped us to survive.
We trusted in each other's capability,
And kept our faith to the best of our ability.

We had promises made that we had to keep.
Smile to smile, there were tears left to weep.
This gave us the courage to keep alive,
And through this, the will to survive.

They sold us a line about glory,
But we all knew this to be a story.
You had fought for me, I had fought for you.
Truth be told, that's all we'd ever do.

(c) January 15, 2026   Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved