Seven Steps To Hell

Berlin boys and barracks buddies
and G.I.’s in tight twink bodies,
between drills on hills
and maddening marches
in green garb of macho men
from boys with toys
and bullets in weapons
that maim and kill in anger
or accident or vengeance,

there be I,
with secret loves and desires
and teenage bodily fires,
locked and loaded and
closeted and confused,
words not spoken
except in jest or anger,
whispered or shouted,
“Homo, Faggot, Gay”
from sergeants
in sinecures and those
in-secures,
and all the while,

I, a soldier,
with my “A”
pyramid patch
on my shoulder,
and the epigraph:
“SEVEN STEPS TO HELL.”

©TP/MMXIV