I lived my life in nineteen forty-two, between the air-raids and the rations, waiting for when you returned and held me close, a forgotten thing, this and this and this a coming spring, a winter that rolled on with bangs and darkness and things unspoken because we carried a mask with which we suppressed our fears of the horror that was already crushing the lives of the ones we abandoned, forgotten, believed safe behind the script of hate masquerading as words of peace on sheets of paper that meant nothing more than the random lines etched onto a map in lieu of difference, the difference in our skin and blood and what we view as sacred by which I mean the holy land of our father, the precious soil of our mother, the ground in which the emperor grew to regal height and fell with each cherry blossom, an offering to the future that could not be redeemed by the booming generation that felt demeaned by what its forebears achieved in desperation, in necessity, and so turned and conquered with cold, hard, cash the things that once had been purchased by blood spattered in meaning, in trust, a hope of power that was merely lust, the stiffening which is the finality of middle age before it softens to detumescence and senescence and an ultimate decline to forgotten, like the sacrifices made, like the efforts given with no thought of reward, because this is what was done so that order would be restored to our lives, which we lived in fear of the nothing I lived with you, in nineteen forty-two.
—Clive is writer of poetry and short stories living in Cornwall, UK. His main role is family carer, where various health issues make for a full time position. He occasionally blogs about how hard writing is at www.clivetern.com.