Emily Elizabeth Buckley

This is the Anthem for Doomed Youth

whose goodbyes still shine in

b          l           a           n          k

eyes, too young to have already died.

This is the Anthem for Doomed

men turning back to our dying,

shells and mortar raining down,

what is love doing here?

This is the Anthem for

those who were exposed,

with his hand in mine, his half-known face,

the world collapses around us.

This is the Anthem

to lose him to, in smothering dreams

of a home we don’t belong in,

I see him drowning in death.

This is the

way we lose our love

in hell on Earth

is this what we deserve?

This is

it. The end of the line.

The world collapses around us.

But nothing happens.

This

our only way of dying.

Previously published: Flash Literary Journal