The Outsider

It is a warm August day in Illinois
Not unpleasant on my cousin’s shaded back lawn
Surrounded by family
Some I have not seen in some twenty odd years

It is the first family reunion with my presence in that time
I watch quietly as they mingle
Aunts and uncles, my mother
Sisters, brothers and spouses, their children, my wife and sons
 
Cousins, some in-laws I have never met
And friends, like Rick
He was my best man at our wedding
Closer than brothers a long time ago

When I came home from Vietnam
We were no longer close
He was different, or I was
Whichever, we drifted apart

I stand alone on the outer edge
Watching the children at play
Thinking of another time
When I was young

A cousin, Debbie, walks up to me
She tells me with tears in her eyes, thirty years after
How fearful she was when I was in Vietnam
She tells of how she cried when I came home

I never knew, how could I?
Sweet Debbie, with all her problems was worried about me
A girl whose only wealth she has been able to find in this world
Is the gold she was born with in her heart

She hugs me and I awkwardly part
Staying on the rim of our family’s festivities
With my father now gone
I am the last in this group to have seen war

I am different from them
My own blood
I feel it, sense it
And I feel they sense it too

Their laughter seems to come so easily
Their joy is so real
Highs that I am unable to reach
Sadness overcomes me

I am a member of this family, for I share the same name
I am their brother, son, husband, nephew, uncle, father or cousin
Yet I am a different, an outsider
I do not belong here, but then if not here, where?




Michael Tank
USMC
Scout/Snipers
1969-1972

09/15/2001



"Copyright 2004. Michael E. Tank All rights reserved. No part of this document may be copied, faxed, electronically transmitted, or in any other manner duplicated without express written permission of the author."


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