I'm Not Brave

I’m not brave

I imagine being brave

Standing before a pair of soldiers

Boys holding fire in their arms

Fire to burn through me

And fire in their words

And fear in their eyes

And ice in their hearts

I unclothe easily

Showing no shame

Bold in my nakedness

In my home of broken walls

You think you

Humiliate me

In my nakedness

Oh no soldier boys

And you are boys

Pawns even paid

It’s your clothes that humiliate you

White and blue round you wrapped

In some imagined privilege

Take it off I say to you soldier boys

Let’s be naked together

After all we are foreskin free

You and me

And all this I say unspoken

Between each blow

Because I know

I’m not brave