I want to write about the time we were there in the trenches, do you remember that ? Fighting what wasn't coming at us, warding off something that wasn't there. Toiling hard, going farther and farther away from what made us, well, us, exerting even further, then utter exhaustion. But later, there weren't any exhumations, there were no bones left to sift through. So there was no need for ossuaries of any kind.

But for a little while that we were alive and down there, there was only us, mists of blood around our heads, red ribbons twirling in the air, tying us together, binding us, keeping us there, making us remain there, even after we had left. Did I leave you there in the sodden muck in the midst of all the discarded shells, or am I still there. I didn't come to your side, you were always like a bullet on the ground, then you were one. That's where you are now, still hoping for some respite. Yeah, I'm not writing that. It would feel too much like a confession. Where we are now, even the ghosts refuse to stay in the corner. They are stirring, aswirl.

They were here, but we are not.

Then we were standing in the shanties the army had made into their impromptu offices, staring at all the letters soldiers of a forgotten war wrote to their loved ones.

We were looking at all the letters written on the Wall and the reflection of the fading words bounced around, kept rattling within the walls of our heads; indelible, ineffable, and ultimately inedible. We left the words there, but took the letters home with us.