![see credit](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1459445364195-16475050193c?dpr=1&auto=format&crop=entropy&fit=crop&w=1500&h=1163&q=80&cs=tinysrgb) 

You look at us and to you we are fools.  
We live our short lives.
We die with a sword in our hands.
You live your full years. 
You die of old age in your bed.  
To you we are fools.  
You see us as naive.
The easily taken in by the powers supreme. 
In our respective lands.  
You see us as fools. 
We who have never lived?
Never felt the joy of appreciating a well-aged taste of wine?

But I've seen things you never will.  
I touched the caves where the first man made his home.  
I've held his primitive weapons.  
I've seen the sea and felt its warmth of its skin.  
I've felt the gentle desert breeze touch its red sands.  
I've seen harsh winters of the great north. 
I've seen the hamsins of the deep south.  
I've seen great warriors come and go.
I've seen wars run its course.  
Yet I am still naive in your eyes, 
I am still the simpleton.
A waste of life, who is wasting a life.  
My heart belongs to freedom.  

And after all these years, 
After the scars have healed, 
I can tell you this:  Death tags me every day.  
Every day can be the last and may be the last. 
I know such to be true.  
Yet every morn is the greatest, sweetest morn.
Every ray of sun is a miracle I hold dear.  
If I was to die tomorrow, today,
A second from now or year, 
I would have no regrets.  
Fool, am I?  
Simpletons empowered by our deeds.
They spit on our blood.  


**Notes:**
*I wrote this while hammered about ten years ago. I was so bloody hammered I don't recall what prompted me to write it. It was likely when one of my friends was deployed and we couldn't get word of him for a few months (came back in one piece thankfully).*

**Image Credit:**
*[Photo by Arto Marttinen on Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/pQS0ETF3KTI)*