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PTSD

Like rabbit in the headlight caught
I want to move, i know I ought
But quicksand stuck, I’m petrified 
My body still, arms laid by side
Stretched out on mattress, naked, soaked
From sweat in which my body’s cloaked
My eyes beneath my eyelids twitch 
I feel spell bound, as though bewitched 

For no amount of effort made
Will stop the mighty fusillade 
Of flitting thoughts that run amok 
In brain that never seems to stop
That terrify and keep me still 
And holds me there against my will
As demons holler, scream and shout
Cause in me panic, fear and doubt

Another night. Another night
Of post traumatic, tear filled fright
Recurrent themes of past events
That feel electric, shock intense
Of sights and tastes, of smells and sounds
Of death displayed on battleground 
Where I lay frozen like a corpse 
Amongst the dead of man and horse

Laid with my friends whose high pitched screams 
Preceded death, as blood in streams
Poured forth from wounds and shattered limbs
With faces fixed in rictus grin
Their eyes wide open, traumatised
Set fast at time of their demise
These friends I’ve lost. Held close, held dear
I felt their pain. I felt their fear

Me, myself, will coward call
For I, stock still, watched comrades fall
As bullets sent from snipers hide
Shot men who dropped like swatted flies
While flares lit up the darkened sky
I saw those maimed around me writhe 
They cried in anguish, cried in pain 
Cried out for mothers, though in vain

For mothers comfort they’d not get
Just cold embrace from barbed wire net 
Or warmth from bullet searing flesh 
Or tender mustard gas caress 
For mothers could not see their tears
Could not console with sympathies
These boys who came forth from their wombs
Though trench would likely be their tomb

Again, again sent out again
To breach the top of trench. AGAIN!
To fight against an enemy 
We did not know and could not see
We were sick, with madness cursed
Our shell shocked brains we nightly nursed
Self soothed ourselves, curled into balls
Whilst huddled against trenches walls

When injured we were fixed and sown
To battle ground we would return
But minds cannot be healed with stitch 
Though bodies healed our minds were sick
Sick of life and sick of death
Our lives bereft and meaninglessness 
Oh take us from this maddened curse 
Of war that seems oh so perverse 

The end came quick, armistice signed 
Came home from war, left friends behind
Consigned to unknown soldiers grave 
In foreign land and small enclaves
But memories of these past events
Lay dormant not and circumvent  
the inner workings of my brain
Night after night with no refrain 

The war has left a deepened scar 
My mind a waking, night-time, mare
Of comrades I’ve left dead on Front
With blown off faces, bloodied stumps
Whose images, come back to haunt 
Sorrow filled and ghostly gaunt 
I weep as pictures fill my head
Of bodies slain, disfigured, dead

Come the night when I can sleep 
And cry no more on sweat stained sheets
No longer feeling tense and fraught 
As though entrapped and cobweb caught
I’ll feel no shame that I came home
Will not feel guilt for friends now gone
No horrors will prevail my thoughts
Of those who died on battlefront 

There’ll be a time when I will shed 
My cloak of fear that’s stitched with dread
When only fondest memories
Of friends I had revisit me
Should I feel lucky I survived 
Did fortune favour those who died
I often wonder who fared worse
The now deceased or living cursed
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