Cross My Heart

“Cross my heart and hope to die” the note said to his friend,

A promise made at 8 years old… “I’ll love you ’til the end.”

She saved the note and every year… she’d read it once again,

Treasured every word and wondered… just what it meant back then.

They married right before… he went off to Afghanistan

He wrote her every day… about his hopes and dreams and plans

He signed each note so carefully… and wrote the words again,

“Cross my heart and hope to die, I’ll love you till the end.”

BRIDGE: He came home to celebration, hugged his child and cried

But was too soon surrounded … by dark and troubled skies

He struggled for his peace … his dreams were haunted lies

Confusion turned his life into the burning question “Why?”

Oh Why?…

She found him in the drive… his dreams were cold and gone

The note was in the bedroom… next to pictures of their son,

“It’s not your fault, don’t wonder why, I fought the fight, you know I tried,

But the pain’s too great, and I… I just have to fly”

Cross my heart and hope to die

(In the Future)

She’s eighty now, her life’s been full… she learned how to transcend,

But she saved the notes and every year, she reads them each again…

The promise made, the truth conveyed … that helped her heart to mend,

“Cross my heart and hope to die. I’ll love you till the end. “

By Annette Guyer Johnson 2014