Dear peace,

Never again will I hate with my heart, use such a pure instrument and poison it to play terrible melodies that have ruined us brothers and sisters forever. If I am to survive this wretched war, surpass the diseases rampant that have stolen our boys' ability to stand, trample over the fallen bodies of my comrades without a shot to my chest, then I will carry my love—for you, for myself—as the only motivation to live.

To think we ignorant fools sought the fantasy of seeing the exaggerated beauty of heroism when we signed our messy scribbles on our forms; the sky rains bullets and shells in a thunderous downpour, as if even the heavens have shunned our presence. All I taste and feel and see is sin, filthy like the curses and moans of men struck with shrapnel, too slow a death to reach their glassy eyes.

They tell me when I arrive with the lucky few survivors the next morning that their bodies will not be recovered, may never be recovered, because what are dead bodies, buried in a muddy battlefield, to the living people?

What are pawns to the kings and queens in this game of guns and thick skin?

If the war does not take me first, it may take my sanity in the gamble. I'm mortal and human, breaking down by the deaths, horrors, violence; oh, peace, the shell shock has taken away what the enemy could not inflict upon our flesh and bones. They have taken our mind.

If I survive this war, may I love and love to overcome this nightmare that I willingly lay awake for. May I survive with four able limbs and a mouth to pray silently for the innocence this war has stolen with its merciless hands. May I succumb to no devil of mankind that does not share my views, does not believe in you—peace—that both sides crave.

May your love be enough to allow me to survive, for this war might end in two ways for me.

Either their fingers will pull the trigger, or it will be my own.