As I wake up 

I hear the birds sing.

Like angels as soon as you

Enter the gates of heaven.

Suddenly they all stop.

Almost like when someone,

Turns off a car. 

Now all I hear are my thoughts,

As well as the stop watch I’ve kept.

Ticking. Nothing but ticking. 

Tick… Tick… Tick…

I know something isn’t right.

It’s quiet, too quiet.

Am I going crazy?

Has the gunshots,

The bombs,

And the people in front of me,

Dying with me there,

Nothing to do but move on.

Has it all caught up?

Tick… Tick… Tick… 

It's 8 am.

Everyone is up,

I know because I hear the rustling in the tents.

My walkie-talkie is going off.

I quickly jump to it,

To then silence it.

Mostly static,

But I can hear a faint voice.

It’s saying code red.

My thinking was correct.

An ambush,

That hasn’t been done.

Tick… Tick… Tick…

Over the ticking I can hear a pin drop.

So faint but so clear.

Like a penny dropped,

In a busy city.

Footsteps,

It’s so quiet.

Because of the silence,

Those footsteps may as well belong to a giant.

Tick… Tick… Tick… 

Silence,

Nothing but silence.

Then all I see is a grenade in my tent.

That pin.

That pin was the thing that separated me,

From death. 

Tick… Tick… Tick…

As that last tick hit,

I knew,

My time was up.