Domestic Warfare

If she ever comes to live with me,
she said,
she’s putting little green army men
around the bed
to protect herself from me.

Little green army men
around the bed.

I laughed so hard
I nearly let the sentence pass
for a joke.

But that is us.
Two people who treat feelings
like a low-grade emergency.
Two people who should maybe
come with perimeter fencing.
Two people the mattress
ought to be warned about
in advance.

Little green army men
around the bed.

I know the exact ones.
The kneeling one.
The crawling one.
The one with his arm raised
like he has just spotted God
or incoming fire.

She would place them carefully,
all that tiny green resolve,
all that dollar-store warfare,
all those ridiculous little men
posted at the lip of the sheets
to defend her
from the woman she invited here.

As if the bed were neutral territory.
As if the pillow did not already know
our worst ideas.

Little green army men
around the bed.

To protect her from me.
Which is funny,
because I would need
my own ring of protection.
My own bright perimeter.
Something to keep out
her weather system.
Her mouth.
Her gift for turning damage
into a point of principle.
Her little talent
for making the room smell
like ozone before the strike.

We are not safe people
when frightened.
We are not the soft kind.
We are the kind
who call back during the fight.
The kind who refuse
to let the line go dead.
The kind who could turn
a fitted sheet
into a historical conflict.

Little green army men
around the bed.

I would still get through.
Not nobly.
Not with grace.
The way roots get through concrete.
The way damp gets into walls.
The way feeling, once admitted,
spreads.

One snapped rifle.
One crushed helmet.
One tiny green martyr
disappearing into the carpet
beneath the full weight
of my bad ideas.

Because that is also us.
Every defense theatrical.
Every warning a flare.
Every joke with its own small knife
folded inside.

Little green army men
around the bed.

It is a child’s idea of protection,
which is what makes it so vicious.

No blood.
No true casualties.
Just bright plastic soldiers
ringing the softest square in the house
while two grown adults
try not to ruin each other
with history,
with words,
with all the old civilian injuries.

She said it laughing.
That is the meanest part.

Not
don’t come near me.
Not
I am afraid of what happens
when you do.

Just
little green army men
around the bed,

as if fear gets cuter
when reduced to toy scale,
as if the right arrangement
of miniature violence
might save us
from being exactly
what we are.

I can see them even now,
all around the perimeter,
their tiny green bodies
lit by the bedside lamp,
brave as delusion,
stupid as faith.

And me, on the other side,
pausing only long enough
to admire the effort
before stepping over
every last one.