Beautiful The Way

Standing here with me

I think that you are beautiful

I want time to stop

For just a moment

Long enough to catch my breath

So I can always remember you

Exactly as you are right now

You are beautiful

Is it strange to say that

About a man?

Well, you are beautiful

Beautiful the way

Rockets bursting across the sky

Over Fallujah are beautiful

Showers of heat and light and color

Lighting the faces of the whole platoon

Beautiful the way

Red is beautiful

Running as a bloody river

From the kisses of death on skin

My God, you are beautiful

Beautiful the way

Holes dug in earth are beautiful

To find a little peace on earth

From incoming fire

That never seems to end

Beautiful the way

Reunions are beautiful

When you clasp loved ones so tight

You forget to let them breathe

You are beautiful

Beautiful the way

Tattoos are beautiful

Etched across your skin

Both stories and scars

Words and faces and the Corps

Inked all over your body

You are so damn beautiful

Beautiful the way

Memories are beautiful

Phantoms are beautiful

When they come to haunt you

With a fury night and day

And finally just at night

Beautiful the way

Loyalty is beautiful

The kind that means you would kill

For your battle buddies

Here or across the ocean

Beautiful the way

Smiles for distant things

Others will never see are beautiful

And silence when you don’t fill the space

With stories too dark to share

You are heart-breakingly beautiful

Beautiful the way

Opening up about hard-lived days

And carrying all this with you is beautiful

Absolutely

Utterly

Wrenchingly

Beautiful