Down at OP Overlord,

all groggy and bored

with eternal watch duty,

the darkness sends me

a message. I’m wearing goggles

with night vision, X-ray eyes to see

into a glitchy, neon moonscape.

I am not alone. All around me

is trash. Half-eaten food packs,

left by other joes who sat long restless nights

but never saw much. I relieve them

and they leave me this: a perfect meal plan

for the army of rats who sleep in these rocks

whose presence is known by evidence of turds.

My focus wanders from the road beyond—

the stars radiate in overwhelming force.

My dreams, in fits and starts,

trouble me like the field radio, crackling

in my ear, chattering

a cold and distant language—

till a tug from below pulls me back,

the messenger, his emerald eyes aglow,

climbing up my leg with notification:

this terrain is occupied

and coming to life.