Excerpt from The Journey Back to Myself
One of my poems, PTSD
PTSD
You are the enemy I fight
Every single day,
You are constantly there,
I do my best to keep you at bay,
I do not know when you are going to
Rear your ugly head,
I do not know what will happen
During the day to cause me to
Flashbacks and nightmares,
I do not know when
I will be triggered
And get into fight or flight,
All I know is that
there are times
When I am afraid,
There are times when
I cannot stand noise,
There are certain smells,
There are times when
I cannot stand being
Around people.
There are certain places that I avoid,
There are times when I am constantly
Looking over my shoulder,
There are times when I am afraid that
Something will happen to me,
There are times when I get
triggered that the
Images replay over
and over again,
Cannot relax,
Afraid,
There are times when
I cannot sleep and
I toss and turn
I finally get to sleep
I wake up crying,
My palms are sweaty,
My body is shaking,
My shoulders are tight,
My knee is hurting,
My ankle is hurting,
The nightmares that I had felt
like they are raping me again,
I leave me body,
I am not breathing any more,
I hear what they said to me,
Hear what the police officer said to me,
Hear what chain of command said to me,
Keep replaying over and over again
What he said in email and
how they did nothing to him
Try to tell myself that I am safe,
Try to do deep breathing
But when I breathe deeply
Start crying more and more.
