Thirty Year War

Are you certain

You got your facts straight

It's been a long time

And the language may have changed

Are you certain

You trust your memory

From a time when we

Still believed in right and wrong

Have you recorded all the casualties

All the strategies

Of this thirty-year war

I remember

How the prisoners

Used to comfort me

Even as I locked the cells

I got to know them

Their eccentricities

Their family histories

And who it was they used to be

Back before all the casualties

All the strategies

Of this thirty-year war

All they don't know

Is that so long ago

I was a prisoner in this very cell

What they don't see

Is the part of me

That still wears the scars of criminality

They don't identify me anymore

I will not be another casualty

Of my very own

Thirty-year war