Principal Damage
May. 22nd, 2007 12:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
evilroosterThe cloning table holds me half-reclined
And wraps the scanning visor round my head,
Recording me. I try to clear my mind,
But grief remains. My alter self is dead.
A roadside bomb went off; his whole squad died.
Like all the other soldiers grown before
From memories and tissue I've supplied,
He died. As will the next, and many more.
I knew that he was gone before the call—
I felt the bomb explode, and tasted blood.
I can't explain, but I've died with them all,
Been burned and shot, been stabbed and drowned in mud.
Sometimes I wish that I were just a clone
So when I die, I die just once, alone.
Originally sent to Asimov Magazine; posted on Making Light after rejection.
And wraps the scanning visor round my head,
Recording me. I try to clear my mind,
But grief remains. My alter self is dead.
A roadside bomb went off; his whole squad died.
Like all the other soldiers grown before
From memories and tissue I've supplied,
He died. As will the next, and many more.
I knew that he was gone before the call—
I felt the bomb explode, and tasted blood.
I can't explain, but I've died with them all,
Been burned and shot, been stabbed and drowned in mud.
Sometimes I wish that I were just a clone
So when I die, I die just once, alone.
Originally sent to Asimov Magazine; posted on Making Light after rejection.
