Like Rabbit In a Headlight Caught

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