You gave me

A generous handful of words

To remember you by

Imprinted in my memory

Like the Vietnam scar tissue

All over your body

Screaming of your nightmares

And could'ves

And should'ves

Broken on the side of the roads

In Phnom Penh

And all the bars in

El Paso and Juarez.

We littered them together

In different decades.

You gave me

Intense survival tools

The Green Beret of life

How to beat the drugs

The pain of regrets.

I won my way out

With your secret help.

Your friend's silence

Complicity with ex-soldiers

In Police uniforms

Watching my friends.

Your generous words of wisdom

When to be there

When to leave

When to smile

How to walk away.

The green beret

Beat the bottle

The daughter

And the daughter beat the hate

To thank her father.

Elizabeth Terrazas