I, Shield

I feel weird. Bullets and Molotov cocktails once whizzed by my metal frame, now I'm a pillow for the tear-moistened cheek of a crying woman.

I shield soldiers, soldiers shield society, society shields this woman, and somehow I'm supposed to feel consolation in that.

I don't.

I simply barricade. I simply demarcate imaginary lines that wouldn't exist if man didn't exist. I make delusions into reality.

And how do you suppose I feel about this? It doesn't really matter because I'm just another inanimate object. But, you know, people forget that they too were once inanimate clumps and they will one day return to inanimate clumps.

Just once I'd like to switch effacements; to embrace that poor woman the same way she embraces me. Instead, I'm forced to impart unquestioning armament to this man who probably has less thoughts than I do.

From the corporals to the corporeal, all is an attrition between the dead and the dying.