To End All Wars
one and only.
This happiness, I don’t trust it.
We are the post World War I German citizens, not sure if we’ve won or lost. Our desperation and confusion can be felt, almost tangible, all around us. Not sure whether to rejoice or weep for the loss of so many. You can almost taste it, heavy and bittersweet on your tongue.
Ever since that night on your front lawn, when we laid out blankets, and ran away from your attacking sprinklers, and drank cranberry vodka and didn’t care if your parents saw because it was all okay, or so we thought. When we stayed out there until three in the morning, a tangled mess of limbs of secrets. I told things to you that I had never told anyone else, that I had barely ever told myself. But it seemed right. And now I don’t know. Was it right, what happened? The dawn of the great World War. We didn’t ever see it coming, and once we did, we ran to the battlefield, thinking we’d be home by Christmas.
All I can picture when I see you now is you, you in the back seat of his car, with the awkward questions and the unsure answers. Answers that he took as acceptance. The spark. The beginning that all of this confusion was grounded on. I want to be angry with him, but I can’t, because you gave in to him, he took nothing away. Then why do I still feel like he did? Why am I still angry with him? You gave in to the expected chocolate and fancy restaurant. Was it before or after the dance, when you came and never once joined us on the dancefloor, sitting awkwardly next to him? I hate him for you, since you can’t seem to do it yourself. You were the spark, our Franz Ferdinand. You made us question what we thought was ideal, what was perfect. And now the black hand sweeps over us all.
Then there was the unexpected friendship, stemming from our mirrored rejection by the same heartbreaking charmer. An unexpected alliance between Russia and England, past rivals, now closely intertwined. We are both still stuck in his grasp, but we’re stuck together. We can feel the sense of impending doom, but we’re not scared. And that terrifies us. We’re friends now, right? We’re close friends, and it’s strange. I don’t feel good enough to be friends with a person of such beauty and thought. Will you be just as bad for me as he was?
This happiness, I don’t trust it. The end, the Treaty at Versailles, where we thought that everything was solved by scripted signatures on a piece of parchment paper. But all it will do is make it worse once the war creeps back up on us. I feel all of the same desperation as before, I can sense it. But I don’t know where it’s gone. I just haven’t found it yet, but I know it’s there, light as a pinprick, reminding me that the rug still hasn’t been pulled. Will it hit again, will it hit us harder? The crippling depression brought about from loneliness. Desperation.
I can feel the rug creep from underneath my feet, but I don’t know how to move. I don’t know how to escape. We’re all together in this loneliness, aren’t we? I heard someone say that. Does that make it better? That other people are as lonely as you are? I don’t think so. But it does. I feel soothed. Or is it pacified? I can’t tell.
This happiness. I don’t trust it.
The rug is still moving, and the second war still looms on the horizon. Inevitable. Devastating. We don’t know if we’ve won or lost, and we’re almost out of troops.
We don’t know if we’ll make it through this one, boys. Kiss your wife goodbye and take one last look at your picket fence, because you may never see them again.
‘The war to end all wars’.
We are the post World War I German citizens, not sure if we’ve won or lost. Our desperation and confusion can be felt, almost tangible, all around us. Not sure whether to rejoice or weep for the loss of so many. You can almost taste it, heavy and bittersweet on your tongue.
Ever since that night on your front lawn, when we laid out blankets, and ran away from your attacking sprinklers, and drank cranberry vodka and didn’t care if your parents saw because it was all okay, or so we thought. When we stayed out there until three in the morning, a tangled mess of limbs of secrets. I told things to you that I had never told anyone else, that I had barely ever told myself. But it seemed right. And now I don’t know. Was it right, what happened? The dawn of the great World War. We didn’t ever see it coming, and once we did, we ran to the battlefield, thinking we’d be home by Christmas.
All I can picture when I see you now is you, you in the back seat of his car, with the awkward questions and the unsure answers. Answers that he took as acceptance. The spark. The beginning that all of this confusion was grounded on. I want to be angry with him, but I can’t, because you gave in to him, he took nothing away. Then why do I still feel like he did? Why am I still angry with him? You gave in to the expected chocolate and fancy restaurant. Was it before or after the dance, when you came and never once joined us on the dancefloor, sitting awkwardly next to him? I hate him for you, since you can’t seem to do it yourself. You were the spark, our Franz Ferdinand. You made us question what we thought was ideal, what was perfect. And now the black hand sweeps over us all.
Then there was the unexpected friendship, stemming from our mirrored rejection by the same heartbreaking charmer. An unexpected alliance between Russia and England, past rivals, now closely intertwined. We are both still stuck in his grasp, but we’re stuck together. We can feel the sense of impending doom, but we’re not scared. And that terrifies us. We’re friends now, right? We’re close friends, and it’s strange. I don’t feel good enough to be friends with a person of such beauty and thought. Will you be just as bad for me as he was?
This happiness, I don’t trust it. The end, the Treaty at Versailles, where we thought that everything was solved by scripted signatures on a piece of parchment paper. But all it will do is make it worse once the war creeps back up on us. I feel all of the same desperation as before, I can sense it. But I don’t know where it’s gone. I just haven’t found it yet, but I know it’s there, light as a pinprick, reminding me that the rug still hasn’t been pulled. Will it hit again, will it hit us harder? The crippling depression brought about from loneliness. Desperation.
I can feel the rug creep from underneath my feet, but I don’t know how to move. I don’t know how to escape. We’re all together in this loneliness, aren’t we? I heard someone say that. Does that make it better? That other people are as lonely as you are? I don’t think so. But it does. I feel soothed. Or is it pacified? I can’t tell.
This happiness. I don’t trust it.
The rug is still moving, and the second war still looms on the horizon. Inevitable. Devastating. We don’t know if we’ve won or lost, and we’re almost out of troops.
We don’t know if we’ll make it through this one, boys. Kiss your wife goodbye and take one last look at your picket fence, because you may never see them again.
‘The war to end all wars’.