Throat Full Of War Stories

By the time you read this, they're shoving another scope down my throat. Third one in a year hunting for those rings that keep getting darker. Nurse has a ring too. Diamond catches the fluorescent light while she's checking my vitals. Married. Of course she's married. Everyone worth wanting is taken or toxic or both.

Your heart rate's a bit elevated. Yeah, no shit. Try watching hell cook in front of you every night for a year. Try choking on air that tastes like burning plastic and broken promises. Try sitting here while you flirt with me using medical terms, pretending we both don't know where this ends.

Started in those burn pits back in '08. Each breath a little closer to whatever's killing me now. Didn't think about it then. Too busy being young and stupid and immortal.

Now I'm counting rings in my throat like anniversary gifts from Uncle Sam.

The cute nurse asks about my tattoo. I tell her stories instead. The clean ones. Not the ones about puking blood in port-a-johns while mortars walk in. Not about how sometimes I miss that chaos more than I should.

She laughs at all the right moments. Her ring catches the light again. Reminds me some things should stay buried.

Doctors huddle around screens like they're watching some fascinating documentary.

Remarkable, they say. Like my throat's some kind of modern art piece. Like each dark ring isn't just another tally mark on death's scorecard. Wonder if the nurse watches these videos at night. Wonder if she thinks about her patients when she's home with her husband.

PT test says I'm good to go. Mirror shows a warrior. Scans tell a different story.

Something's in there, making itself at home. Part of me hopes they find it today. Other part hopes the cute nurse is there when they do. Fucked up how your mind wanders when you're waiting to hear if you're dying.

Daughter's sleeping while I write this. She doesn't know dad's up thinking about death and married nurses and all the shit we breathed that's finally coming to collect.

By the time you're reading this, they'll know more about what's trying to kill me than I do. And that nurse will be home with her husband, maybe thinking about the Marine with the throat full of war stories.

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Writing Prompt: They say you look fine.

I’ve been writing freeflow prompts like this since 2019. Starts out as a spontaneous writing process from just a thought. No effort to control or structure it.

Write about a moment when your outside and inside were telling different stories. Take us deep into that disconnect - how it feels to bench press your bodyweight while your organs are writing resignation letters. Show us what it's like to wear health like armor while something inside you is conducting guerrilla warfare against your own body. Make us feel the weight of those casual compliments that cut. No sugar-coating. No poetry. Just the raw truth of looking like a warrior while fighting a war nobody else can see.