from Voices in Wartime

It should break your heart to kill

It is a condition of wisdom in the archer to be patient because when the arrow leaves the bow, it returns no more. ― ancient Arabic proverb.

It should break your heart to kill.
It should make you shake and sweat,
nightmare you, strand you out in a desert
of irrevocable desolation, the consequences
seared into the vein, no matter what adrenaline
feeds the muscle its courage, no matter
what god shines down on you, no matter
what crackling pain and anger
you carry in your fists, my friend,
it should break your heart to kill.
It should never be so easy as this.

― Brian Turner (returned Iraq war veteran and poet, featured in the Voices in Wartime Anthology)