by Loud Sue

Before  you go into battle

Learn thy enemy

Sneak into their home

When they are pillaging elsewhere

Play their musical instruments

Eat from the sauce jar in the fridge

Maybe date their wives and/or husbands

Take their children to the park

Let them go on the rides their parents’ won’t

You will be their hero

As you go into battle

Study thy enemy

Learn their

Idiosyncratic Behavior Patterns

So you can mirror them

To point out the only truth

Anyone ever needs to know

Practice their tone and inflection

So they can identify themselves

In you

While they are bashing in your skull

From afar

When you are in battle

Be thy enemy

Invite them into your camp

To sip tea and

Elucidate strategies of

How you will meticulously

Rip each other to pieces

Limb by limb

Smoke a few cigarettes

While you take walks together along the trenches

Share pastries that define your heritage

Before you eat out each other’s mouths

Tell yourselves how

The families are

You’ve enjoyed in each other’s absence

Much earlier in the long day passing

Recount the same memories you’ve never shared

Till you realize the only war you’re in

Is your struggle with time

And how to live and  love correctly

Kiss each other goodbye

And turn out the lights