Tears trapped in my eyes,
From a past war
Waged on my body.
But my mind still carries
Its wound—
PTSD
Is what they are calling it.
I guess every feeling has a name.

But I don’t know how
A mere thought can be so powerful
To send you down the rabbit hole—
A vertigo of unease,
To relive your nightmare.
And you feel sorry for
None other than you
In the past life.

Poor child!
I wish I could hug him,
To tell him the next day
Would be better
Than every next day
He survived.

But thank God it’s over!
I got through it all.
I was pulled up
From the valley of death
Given a second chance
To live this second life.

I thank my stars all the time,
And whisper to them often
How I don’t want to feel
What I felt, ever.
I might have survived
The steep fall,
But I don’t want to go down
That road ever.

But my mind doesn’t listen,
And a flashback reminds me
The horror of it all—
What I went through,
In a place where
Not even the bravest would dare.

Was there a reward
For the bravest deed?
Is another chance at living
A survival trophy?
Then why is it still riddled
With these haunted memories?

My scars—
A diseased reminder
Of what I went through,
How I waited patiently for it all
To get over,
And cursed the time
I agreed to pick a sword
Against myself.

I am often taken back to the grave
Of the man who died with me.
Perhaps I never came back.
Perhaps I am still lying, cosily,
In one of the coffins of the past lives.
Perhaps I never left.