For our project, we had to choose a non-dominant perspective of World War II, a story that the history books don’t talk about. I thought about all the stories that aren’t talked about in class, and the one that struck a really strong chord with me was what it was like to be gay in the military during the war. I wrote these poems to ensure that I could, not only share the information and stories of LGBT soldiers, but make the reader understand and feel what they went through.

Bodies

Warm bodies

That’s all they need. 

To march in the mud or shoot a human being.

They know what goes on but turn a blind -eye.

At the end of the day 

So long as you keep your lifestyle behind the curtain and can hold a gun

It doesn’t matter what you look like or what you like.

To them, you’re just another warm body destined to freeze over on the field.

After

We were at war, and now we’re not.

Now we pretend what happened, never did.

What we were then, we’re not now.

It was a mistake we all made

It was easier to forget than to admit.

After, everyone stuck their skeletons in the closet

But eventually, people get claustrophobic.