Am I a Hero?

Contributor: Samuel Chanmany

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I was wanted they say.
Never too young to be drafted they thought.
The biggest feeling of regret I stressed.
A puppet amongst the millions.

Ready to die for a lie.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
I had that friend.
His name was called fear.

I intended to use it.
Until it turned against me.
Now it became my enemy.
There was no one to trust.

No one to love.
No one to call brother.
No one to call a friend.
Everyone was in Death’s hands.

Lurking through the lost jungle.
The heat breaking my sweat.
The rain covering my tears.
The mud blending with my skin.

Someone to write to.
The ink and the pencil fading.
Paper turning old as the days.
My will to someone at home.

I was supposed to fight.
But I trekked all throughout.
A broken promise told.
Time was not on my side.

The enemy blended with the greens.
No sounds from them.
This was their home.
The snap of a moment.
The heat of the bullets scorched.
Left, right, left, right.
Matched the number of bodies dead.
No burial for them.

The number of days counting.
It felt like an eternity.
The intensity was breathtaking.
When will I go?

Time to leave the jungle.
The cavalry came in.
But a part of me was missing.
A leg left for the enemy.

No purple heart for me.
A spit that drenched me.
This wasn’t my home.
Am I a hero?


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Samuel Chanmany self-indulges in unlimited imagination with his trusted pencil or brush. From bringing drawings to life, to a self portrait with a animated donut, he creates a world in which all are welcomed to join it. In his reality, it is so often that he loses himself with brush strokes that create hues of strangeness and beauty which alternately paints him flying with cats on a canvas.