Vachon Imagined

He stood at the line between himself and the actors—
actors dressed as patriots on Memorial Day,
a declared remembrance of honor.

But the pacifists had grown tired,
weary of wars spoken in the language of oil,
of betrayals so routine they stopped sounding like betrayal.

Not concerned with him.
He fought for an ideal that left his family without a father,
a mother without a son.

He never asked for clemency for the arrangement—
only to fight with the proper tools, the right laws,
laws that still remembered the innocent.

But indiscriminate bombs do not distinguish.
They fall across towns like verdicts,
killing the good and the evil in the same breath.

Still, he asked for nothing but food,
and the will to continue until will itself ran dry.
And it did.

Turncoats met their enemies as friends
because every man has a breaking point,
and every patriot an end point.

Honor or die.

He had a choice:
honor the life he could no longer see,
or perish denying it—
as old walls hardened into cement
he could no longer shape or repair.

He would have to rely on what cannot be seen,
what cannot be proven.

Honor or perish.
The day of remembrance.
The day of clemency.