The War That Followed Him Home

He doesn't talk about it. This is how you know. The ones who talk are the ones who saw the edges. The ones who are quiet— they saw the center. My father came home with all his limbs and none of his sleep. He traded one war for another: the one in his head that didn't have an armistice or a flag or a date when the history books said it ended. War is not what the movies show. War is the sound of a car backfiring and watching a man who loves you leave the room in his eyes while his body stays seated. War is the letter from a mother who doesn't know her son is already a different person than the one she mailed it to. War is the kid who was eighteen and thought he knew what brave meant and learned that brave is just another word for scared with no way out. I don't write this for the flag. I don't write this for the generals or the speeches or the monuments that turn people into stone. I write this for the man who sits at my table and flinches at thunder and has never once asked anyone to understand. Because he came home. And home didn't know what to do with what he brought back. Neither did he. But he stayed. And staying was its own kind of war.