Can happiness exist without sacrifice?
What tax must one pay for joy to suffice?
What is demanded to cover the cost?
An arm? A leg? A life savagely lost?
What contract to sign to purchase some hope?
Whose hand do I grease or offer to dope?
A glimpse of a dawn, how can I avail?
By shadow of night, who must I curtail?
I ask you all this in full honesty
Here, lost in pain, crushed by despondency.
—
Jonathan Diloy is a military veteran and full-time psychology student with a raging reading habit. He was a Navy Seabee and has worked for the US State Department, the White House Military Office, the National Institutes of Health, and Amazon. He has been to every continent except Australia and Antarcica. He attends Hagerstown Community College in Maryland. His experiences as a service member, global traveler, student, and husband to a wonderfully demanding woman have bestowed him with stories from the small moments of everyday life to the fantastical machinations of the imagination.