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Love from a Sailor

by Ryan Barry

Every Sailor has broken a heart
and yet every sailors’ been broken
Feelings of loneliness
fuel motions of sin

Some only once
others again and again
Even after your ship is home
minds and hearts wander
together they roam

To be true
is one of the most difficult tasks
Your brain can’t help your heart to ask
Is this child really mine?
Or the neighbor’s is he?
His hair is black unlike that on me

I left my mistress
On the other side of the world
A night of many beers
Accompanied by girls

They would do anything
To come to the states
Hoping to bear new life
Just before we pay

Now
I am home
Broken
I question if he is my son
While halfway around the world
Broken hearted, she raises my love

Who We Are

Military Experience and the Arts, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose primary mission is to work with veterans and their families to publish short stories, essays, poems, and artwork in our biannual publication, As You Were: The Military Review, periodic editions of Blue Nostalgia: The Journal of Post-Traumatic Growth and others. To the best of our ability, we pair each author or poet that submits work to us with a mentor to work one-on-one to polish their work or learn new skills and techniques.

Our staff is based all over the country and includes college professors, professional authors, veterans’ advocates, and clinicians. As such, most of our services are provided through email and online writing workshops.

All editing, consultations, and workshops are free of charge. Veterans and their families pay nothing for our services, and they never will.

Under our Publications tab, there are more than two dozen volumes of creative work crafted by veterans and their family members as well as a virtual art gallery. Our blog posts feature short pieces that cover a wide range of opinion editorials, literary reviews, and profiles on veteran artists and writers.

Please consider spending some time navigating our site and reading and seeing the fine work of veterans and their families from around the globe.

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