PTSD, a Poem by I. M. Small

PTSD

On false pretext they sent me off
To murder and create,
But there, ´twas hard to hold aloof
Vacuity of hate,
And now the matter rests with me
But I don´t rest at all,
And it may be PTSD
But I´m not blessed at all.

We are the men "that don´t fit in,"
There´s no more fitting now,
Because nobility struck tin
With which men did endow
Their fantasy, as left a mess
All scrambled in my mind,
So I was left with PTS
And D not far behind.

The army sez that my SD
Existed pre post-trauma,
So not a dime will give to me
Except I have my Momma
To tell me, hold my temper down
But she has never been there,
Where cognizance emerged full-blown
Smack in the midst of sin there.

I thought that I could be a hero,
That I could go to school,
But concentration nearly zero
Has made me look the fool,
And I may know the alphabet
My teachers taught to me,
But first, in their disorder, set
Now PTS and D.

I never knew the kind of rage
As in my brain inhabits,
But not a player on the stage
It is not shooting rabbits
That got me to an awful fix,
Though you might find it funny,
PTSD plays funny tricks,
I wouldn´t hurt Bugs Bunny--

And yet at minor provocation
I´d take a schoolbus out--
It´s all because I served a nation
That didn´t have a doubt:
Derangement by rage reinforced
Has got me drinking liquor,
But while I cauterize the worst
Hostility grows thicker.

So all young men who go to war,
Although your cause be noble--
They´ll show you that esprit de corps
But leave you with the trouble,
A peck of trouble, as with P
Preceding T and S,
And then at last a final D,
To lodge at your address.

Wherever you may go, and with
Self-medication helping,
There is no helping with the myth:
Hostility keeps whelping
Despite nobility pronounced
On all the TV stations--
PTSD, when they have pounced,
One´s burden, not the nation´s.

I.M. Small

Read the complete post at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PtsdASoldiersPerspective/~3/QEyyz3amDSM/ptsd-poem-by-i-m-small.html