Enough.

Stopping straight.
Skidding silent.
Wishing well.
Praying violent.
Call to arms.
Two million confusedly marching soldiers
Awkwardly handling bayonets
Trailing buckets of saltwater
Are not enough.
Not enough to change the speed.
Not enough to muffle the rush.
Not enough to explain why it should be different.
Not enough to argue it should've stayed the same.
A stray army picking directions.
Even as words split from the general cacophony.
Isolate into a plea.
Begging in their sleep for a mass prescription of ritalin.
Whispering ritual repetitions of the same sentence
On their knees expecting to finish something.
Anything at all.
Unable to dream because no worlds are allowed to exist within their skulls.
Insufficient.
Immobile.
Resiliently inconsequential.
It used to be enough.
Enough light to read by twilight.
Enough maybes to get out of bed.
Enough evidence to close your eyes and trust.
White walls.
White robes on white psychiatrists.
symmetric faces.
undilated pupils.
unsurprised.
Urging row after row of men to stand in an ordered fashion.
And swallow their perfectly tailored placebos
Down a mere thousand throats
with some orange juice and milk
It used to be enough.
Mudstained features would crack into a smile.
Run back home as the sun sets.
And paper guns wouldn't tear with water.
It used to be enough.
Now the soldiers are in mutiny.
Peaceful protest for practice dummies.
And some sort of medieval armor that will make them feel honorable.
I'm building the walls of their hideout
with screams
Layering it with silence
Sealing it with a single patient maybe.
Maybe I can survive the waging of a war for a new definition of enough.

Shhh. the printing of nametags so the pathetic infantry can feel less lonely.
As she walks by. I mean I.
Reading their identities out loud.
Insubstantial like thoughts
Or an ethereal willpower.
See them all bleed out on the floor and hope
it will be ENOUGH.