ptsd
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Everyone says," Why he is like that?" What? Black or insane?
Then I tell them about my pain, my suffering, and they all say the same
Why would I be lying on my dead friends name? I was 8 when I first took drugs- I was in vain
Everyone says," Why he is like that?" What? Black or insane?
Then I tell them about my pain, my suffering, and they all say the same
Why would I be lying on my dead friends name? I was 8 when I first took drugs- I was in vain
The eyes,they tell no liesand you cannot runfrom their truth.
Those feelings you feel,you cannot hide fromfor they will alwaysbe a part of youyour essence,your soul.
Roses aren’t always red.
Violets aren’t strictly blue.
Not every glimmer’s surely gold-
You’ll never really know the truth!
It's almost time to wake up
I find no reason
i'm not messed up.
I have no love
I have no father
I have no sleep.
The sun is rising
its beatiful I see
"You seem like you're doing better,"
They say, with hesitation
-
On halfway-bad days I still feel it,
A screaming coal burning itself
Through the tissues of my lungs
-
"I'm definitely doing better,"
Never to bed, early to rise
Adds to the rings beneath my eye
The gray and purple, these colors shine through
You'd call them your favorites if you had them too
No rest for the wicked's what I always said
Sometimes I can't help but fantasize
About finding myself in the dark with you again
But not the way it was
-
In my mind, I'm anything but afraid
-
Like practice, I strategize
That night, my hands were not my own.
My mind- I was not home.
I did not caress, I did not cry.
You did what I was told.
I wanted it all to explode.
I wanted it all to burn at my feet.
Live by memory
Wander and haunt within
As a ghost you kill
As a man, you impress.
Snow couldn’t purify you
It’s none of your business!
Interjected quickly and often,
Becomes an all too familiar sound
But those five words can’t soften,
When I was a child, I made a wish.
It was a stupid wish.
I didn't wish to have powers or be a hero.
or even to be liked.
Though i didn't have any of those things either.
I had wished to be remembered.
Is it the false seeping through the cracks of truth,or streams of truth in an ocean of false. Criss-crosses of evil caging humanity...making it barely visible except,at those when it counts the most, Or humanity wrapping the chains of evil, hiding
In that moment, her eyes reminded me of the ocean
So full of life, and twinkling a light blue
So I couldn’t bring myself to disagree
With her youthful excitement at the prospect of joining the USAF.
A ghost came back into my life the other day.
Granted I wasn’t trying to keep it away.
But I call it a ghost because it’s dead to me.
Your eyes are cold dark dead like your soul you say you believe in God almighty in Jesus name amenI hear your voice ringing in my ears my hearts beatingI hear the bell ringing, the door knocking the card chopping My hearts beatingClick click click
Trigger Warning
Chinese food.
The smell of the foreign cuisine
Makes my ribs ache in agony
as nausea overpowers my senses
until all that is left is desperate panic.
I feel dead inside
When will the crippling fear end?
Am I a lost cause?
Could I have changed the course?
I could have told them
I let them believe the lie
If only they knew
I used to have my very own polaroid camera
It was pale yellow,
My favorite colour at the time
I loved it.
When I first got it,
It came everywhere with me
School, bike rides, parties
Everywhere
P
T
S
D
How long have I been doing this for, I got PTSD from the many years lost at war
On top of that I buried my skeletons under the bathroom floor
blood colored stains under my skin
left from the pressure under your finger tips
pinning me down with love
because i dont believe its true if it doesnt hurt
I don't want to carry this with me anymore
-
I want my body to die and take this trauma with it
-
Bury us in a shallow grave to rot away,
Until mold and insects and scavengers
You're like smoke.
-
Shapeless, or just too many shapes to settle on anything real, anything solid.
-
If I make myself look, I can see you- a looming, dark, mass always present in the corner of my thoughts
-
Some days are nothing but black
Fighting a battle in endless fog
Seeing nothing, hearing only pitiful static
Some days are nothing but black
Nights bring emptiness, fading wordlessly to fog
Head under water
Held in place, trapped
I'm losing my breath
Held in place, trapped
Still, you keep me there
Held in place, trapped
It is all my fault
Held in place, trapped
Not proud to say
Just telling the truth
Accepting my flaw
Detached as hell
I'm like air
I could be hot
I could be cold
When I was a child I used to wonder why the veterans in town didn’t like the fireworks on the 4th of July. I thought that’s what they fought for, the freedom to make things go boom.
****Trigger Warning****
It’s like I want to tear my skin off.
I take a breath and hold it.
I can’t let it go.
I open the window
So I don’t suffocate
But the air doesn’t reach my lungs
As I try to count my breaths
Monday I came in to see you
Cant you hear it?there is musicfrom behind the walls.whimsical windits callingbegginglisten listen listen
This body is not my temple.
Ransacked — the pillaging came and went,
and here I am in the dust, grieving
the child that was lost.
Yet still I remember her:
I watched as my entire soul crossed a threshold.
Time slowed and I saw his face.
It was him.
They said I’d never see him again,
Common Pain
The young woman traumatized
The events that guided taught her lessons about life
Rich in memories and lessons, while others are broke
Do you know how frustrating it is,
To be criss-crossed,
Overturned,
Outnumbered,
By men who don’t see my worth?
Fragility is the stability of the broken mind
Do not confuse the lies that hold the two down
To be fragile is the empowerment of the vulnerable
To be stable is the advantage of the emotional
The warm, wet, darkness envelopes my eyes,
My breathing slows with each chest fall and rise.
Sinking deeper and further into inky black sleep,
She walks through her house with a booze in hand,Nobody knows the pain behind her back.Wearing the same clothes she wore every day,She hides the bruises with leather and jeans. A dark-haired beauty in a big big world,Nobody knows who she truly is.
Overhead planes flew
Screams, guns, explosions
That’s all I could hear
I saw feet of my friends running
And ships exploding.
My mouth was like a desert
My stomach tossed and churned
My mentor was trappped in another world
in my tormentors
PTSD, Anxiety, Depression
a supression of myself
I've stuggled against it,
I've tried to deny them
It made me feel as though I didn't fit.
i go to a beautiful university
with an amazing campus
breath-taking views
nooks and crannies
it’s so small i cross all of them daily
the only problem with going to
a beautiful university
Doctors showed me what pills to take
Physiotherapists showed me how to get my body back in shape
Family showed me how to love myself
Friends showed me how to move on
trauma is a teacher
fired from catholic boarding school
its leather bound ruler raps your knuckles
“pay attention!” it barks
“the world will not rest for you, lazy girl!”
“the world is cruel and cold, a demon
Who told you it was over ?
I'm in peace but can't stay sober
When we meet , you greet the makeover
How was the 300 day sleepover?
Not so glad you asked,
covered ass,burning trash
My peers was in class
::Build me a home of stone and dustLight up the fire with roses and lust//Lay me a bed of feathers and cloudsSing me a song of the torn and the vowed//Show me dissenters with rocks in their slings
My heart started racing when his name popped up on my phone’s screen.
I flash back to the many nightmares of him hunting me.
I'm caught in a state of fear, attempting to read his mind,
Click*
The light flicked
The darkness hid.
Hisss!
The cat whispered
To the cockroach In the crib,
The baby is dead,
The house is filled with holes
And no water,
bodily betrayal
my fault
still inside me
years after the assault
complicated nonconsent
complicated discontent
wasn’t drugged
nobody sees me
nobody hears me
swear I've been screaming
tell me I'm dreaming
tired of running
away from my mind
somebody help me
stop pressing rewind
Pull and push,
breathe.
Tug and tear,
breathe.
Claw and grasp,
breathe.
Stare at the ceiling,
whilst the present
tries to slip away,
as you hold to it so
desperately
I forgot I’m forgetting I’m forgotten
Since I got away from you for solid years,
Built up confidence like a Berlin wall that separated my mind from people like you.
You broke my trust
Now you've lost me
I won't come back
I won't call
I tried
And you lost me
We won't talk
We won't be friends
You won't be anything to me
You lost me
I could get lost in the beatuy of your eyes
Compare the, to the beatuy of nature
Crystal blue lakes, perciuos gems
I could say they remind me of home
Of feeling safe
Call your eyes bright as the stars
Dearest Sister,
Oh, how you have suffered.
Child of infidelity, war, and poverty--
Abandoned by those you loved most,
By those who were supposed to love you back.
I think the day you told me
That the words ‘post-traumatic stress disorder’
Could be applied to my name
Is the day I was truly went crazy.
The day that poems started falling
Keep searching for the lyrics of a broken heart
But no words can really express the pain that I feel
No one will ever understand the life I have lived
So I am left here to write this myself.
Dear Future Emergency Responder,
There will come a time when you enjoy CPR
And others won’t understand why you are excited for another person’s emergency
Four in the morning, tired, exhausted,
can’t sleep because I’m living dead.
Life has no purpose, no meaning.
you’re born,
unwilling parasite you survive,
a cog in a machine you never chose to be a part of.
He smiled at me and said 'here, take this'
It was a happy little pill of his and it would feel bliss
I smiled and gave him a kiss saying, 'thank you baby'
But what happened next forever will drive me crazy
He is a monster.His mouth widens to reveal three rows of teeth, and he is covered with blood.My blood.Even though he is hidden in the shadows, his pale skin shines through,Blinding me.When he walks into the light, his demon black eyes shift into a
Deeply buried lies the beast
Masked by smiles and quiet peace
Can't explain, don't want to say
Sometimes alone I quietly pray
I sob and sob, the uncontrollable shake
Oh my God, please crush this beast
The first time you found me,
I was a little girl.
You told me I could trust you
and then you turned around and ruined me.
It is not physical,
People ask about my new "Glow"
"How are you such a morning person?"
"It's my new skin care routine, y'know?"
I lay in bed, trapped in my head
I want the voices to stop,
Muted grey
Shades of pain
Blurry sneers
My arms stretched out
Coils freeze on my limbs
Hanging above soulless concrete
Too close tooclosetooclose
Please don’t touch me
Oh god please don’t yell.
Too closetooclose. TOO LOUD. Too much.
Crooked ladies and shadowed men creep from under my doorViolent screams from my sister's lips Cries for help bleed from my brother All I can do is watch as my f
Please do not touch me like that,
for others have in the past;
they were more invasive
and it makes me remember everything
that I drink to forget.
I catch a glimpse of your dimples when you laugh,
Thinking to myself,
Why are you still here?
I watch as you water the garden we planted together,
Thinking to myself,
Why are you still here?
A mom sits by
Her dumpling's bed,
Watches him closely
Making sure he doesn't bump his head.
He diddles to the left,
And diddles to the right;
Shaking and shivering,
Being myself is so hard sometimes.
I am a muslim woman.
I am also a vietnamese woman.
I am a bisexual Vietnamese muslim woman.
I am part of the first generation in my family born outside of Vietnam.
I am fifteen years old and I think I own the world.
I have a boyfriend and he loves me.
He yells at me but that is okay, he loves me.
He shoves me but that is okay, he loves me.
you told me, i’m a fighter,
you told me, you’d always be here.
you were your sister’s protector, and I’m my brother’s keeper,
you suffered
The soft whisper of a butterfly wing
And the hushed conversation of the rustling grass
Call me to the garden swing,
Where I can reminisce about my past.
I watch the evening sky transform
This winter is cold and heavy,
The frost nipping at my toes,
But I know someone with a bigger bite,
I cannot escape.
The red snow follows every step,
Little red,
Little red,
Hide
Is all I can say
Before the hollow thud of boots cross the floor
I hold my younger brother to my chest
And I see him in someone's sideways smirk,
someone's endless brown eyes,
someone's smile when they laugh.
Uninspired
Unwelcome
America has never been great
I banged my head against walls
To get out of school
Because I couldn’t face my abusers anymore
He long time now flown into state
having 30 years been discharged for
its funny how still I await
the day when he'd return from war
Where do I run
And where do I hide?
Where do I go
So I don’t have to fight?
They tell me I’m wrong
But I’m so scared.
They tell me to face it,
But I am fear.
You
never thanked grandma Rita for the card
stand in your room naked eating tortilla chips
don’t let a mirror catch
in its line of sight or
fall into oblivion and sing Italian opera
Her eyes,
So deeply unsettling,
As I watched
The tragedy unfold.
Her hair,
Tangled in his fist,
Was used
Tell me a secret.
Tell me something no one else knows.
Tell me something no one else understands.
Tell me a secret.
Come here. Closer. Closer.
Do you wanna know a secret?
I hear her scream
I hear her tiny footsteps in the hallow way
Her shallow breathing quickening my heart
She is an empty shell of the person I knew
Her soft skin that used to soothe me is abused by her confusion
Night
it's to be a time of rest and restart
yet all I know is how it tears apart
a family
a love
a being
it was night
that a young girl had her heart shattered
I had a nightmare last night.I stood in the middle of an empty road,In an empty town,Just waiting.For what I don't know.But there I stood.In the silent,The nothingness,
The dust settled,
The battle was over,
I had won the war.
Hundreds of corpses lay on the ground,
Blood ran in rivers,
But I had won the war.
Gun smoke hung in the air,
I can only describe her in phrases that don't make sense
in images
in times of night
or metaphors.
She isn't real and never will be again.
She's dead. I'm not. Ironic.
She comes in waves
I am a ration cabinet.
Every time you squeeze through my doors, under the loose chain, you take bits and pieces of me.
Life went well;
graduation,
a car,
college.
Still, life was
incomplete
and I yearned.
Materials and tangible
satisfied others
and they do I,
Drink, drink, yell, yell, hit hit
The little girl is the target
Swing and throw until she falls down
Go to the lake and try to drown
I remember those things so well
In my mind forever
Reliving it is complete hell
Forgetting would be better
Children of God in the youth psych ward
walking like the dead
lights in the windows too high to reach
black pits in your stomach where you swear your Soul used to be
My life was a whirlwind of suffering, but only within my mind.
My day to day hardships don't always happen in real time.
My life was dark, dead, and dreary.
Image: Aging Hourglass by Muskan Srivastava
She is cold on the ground, I think.
Her body has not reached decomposition, yet
And that is good for the funeral director.
They say beauty is painAnd she's beautifully brokenShe's left hallow and emptyBut her thoughts go unspoken
I sit here in the darkness and I write these rhymes
Calmin’ down my sanity turn it to a clarity
I don’t do it for the fame, I just wanna focus and survive
This dream,
it's haunting me
a horrible picture where you die.
For whatever reason
I can't shake it from my mind
flashbacks, leading to panic attacks
all because of that tragic night.
It’s amazing, really
I’m doing well
I laugh with my friends
And have normal conversations…
It’s amazing, really
My thoughts are hidden
He stares at his ceiling
It's half past four
It's paranoia he's feeling
He looks at his door
No one will come
Yet, he still tries to run
Away from his demons
They scare him a ton
bomb rhymes with mom but
my mom is a bomb--
ticking away from the things that she saw.
you would never think and I had never thought
that my mom would get caught
in government claws
if you asked me to write down all my trivial thoughts i remember on a daily basis, there wouldn't be many.
maybe a melody of laughter with friends or
blurry faces brushing by in the hall or
Beautiful places,
hidden yellow things.
A shadow sipping tonics,
whiskeys and gins.
Ordinary people,
can embody sin.
The man in the moonlight,
trying to forget.
Never scream. The one unspoken rule, the one and only coveted truth.Not when she cries, not when he lies,Not even with maggot-like fingers caressing your thighs. Never, ever scream.
An edged exterior envelopes
a fiery burning soul.
Flaming compassion burns through,
masked by lidded eyes.
The scent of metal and cologne
hugs,
clings,
burns through,
I guess you could say that I have a lot of friends
I've never met a stranger and
My friendships have no end and
I say that not to brag but to say they don't depend
Can't sleep
My brain plays on repeat- can't sleep, can't sleep
The chant so loud it drowns out the lack of sound
Quiet! Can't you see, I'm trying to sleep?
But my own brain is playing tricks on me
Blink
The worst things happen when
All I can see is the back of my eyelids
Blink
But blink fast or you'll miss everything
But how would you know? You're eyes are closed
I'm alone and can't sleepThere's no one here but meI'm stuck with all these memoriesIf they could only see
Buddha, Shakespeare, Albert Einstein, Squanto. These are some of the greatest influences in my life. Buddha once said “What we think, we become”; who the hell would have known the mind, the human brain, was such a powerful organ.
Why won’t I get it?
I have friends both male and female.
I go to parties.
I’m social with others.
I do all these things and yet
Whenever I hear my loved one does it as well
My brain tells me
The longest journey
Is finding joy.
And it's hard to find
In one certain boy.
To use a cliche,
He's been through hell,
And things aren't going
To turn out well.
Everything is a trigger,
A Light, Yet FarThrough dark and dreary roads, I traveled.Soon all light began to fade, and die.Losing all hope and will to live,Traveling through a far and distant land,
Depression and anxiety,Those things that try to come back to me.O and that PTSD,
Some day I hope
I will be happy and free
And rid of all the pain
Of PTSD
It's hard to explain the pain
The thoughts of a young Marine
Screaming as he was dying.
I live in fear but not for me...for someone who has PTSD. He doesn't worry as much as I do but to me, he's braver than us two. He controls his anger and his hurt He is someone that I will never desert. His laugh, his smile and the light in his eye
The apple of your eye
The wind beneath the leaves
Every word is a lie
And nothing is as it seems
The pain could always wane
The cuts and bruises will heal
But when my memories freely rein
An angel can't fly
with defeathered wings.
This angel won't cry,
Nor will she sing.
Beaten and bruised
Tattered and worn.
As pretty as a Rose
But She's distorted by thorns.
Who said the wind does not sing
who said the roses do not bloom
who said I cannot love myself
At age six
she tried to dull my wind
she tried to clip my roses
The words come slipping out
before you can stop them like
bullets
and from the looks on their
faces you know
nothing said now will stop the bleeding
but Goddamit, what should you apologize for?
It is a dense fog
As thick as pea soup
Struggling to suffocate me
Eyes unable to see mere inches ahead
It is a storm cloud overhead
Ominous and dark
Filled with rain about to drown me
This is normal says the teacher
Talking about the emotions
Of a person in a book
And suddenly I am not in the class
I am five again
His hands wandering to places they shouldn't
I can’t sleep in complete darkness
I can’t sleep in total silence
Because bad things happen in places like that
When no one can see your tears
Or hear you breathing heavily
I don't remember much from the hospital
The white walls
The smell of clean diseases
The prick of a needle in my arm
The dizziness becoming clear again
I don't remember when the doctor told me
For me, anxiety is the feeling that I am always being watched.
Anxiety is staying awake because you're afraid of what can happen tomorrow.
I can stare a thousand yards and never see a thing
I can share a thousand thoughts and never even sing
I can live a thousand lives and take them all in vain
The door finally closes, another day spent,
Another act finished, but I’m not content.
I look in the mirror, stare into my eyes –
Were they fooled today by my act, my disguise?
Inside, around, behind
what's in my mind?
Flashbacks
tons of flashbacks.
I wiggle, I scream
hes too mean.
I can't get away
but you think I did it to
myself.
Timing freezes, muscles tense, lungs start gasping for every breath
The room starts spinning, the edges blur, hearts is running, running from death
Every time the sky cries,
She rains too
For in the thunder, their voices echo
In the flashes, pieces flicker,
Yet never stay
And in each new drop, a new image
For her to see and not understand.
THE TIME WHEN YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE THE GREATEST
PEOPLE THOUGHT YOU WERE THE FAKIEST
THE TIME WHEN YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE POWERLESS
COWARD LESS
BRAVE NESS
YOUR CHEST FEELS LIKE ITS ABOUT TO CAVE IN
THE TIME WHEN YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE THE PRETTIEST
THE...
I woke up on a dirty mattress on the floor of a friends house. It's my 16th birthday. A huge milestone in a young persons life.
The deep red, velvety curtain shades her from reality
A mask to hide all sorrows
This thick wall of shame to cover all past sins and tragedies.
The shattered pieces of my psyche scatter across the arid land as a result of the unspeakable horrors witnessed after months of containment.
I attempt to pick up a shard only finding my hand to become ravaged like the men around me.
In war,
there are no winners
other than the war itself.
If you get out of war alive there is still a piece of you that was wounded.
I protected the country I love,
from people who want to hurt MY FAMILY.
Unicorn and Dragon,
Water to heal,
Soul refreshed.
Girly,
Childish,
But so beautiful.
This
Lurked within me
This
Let me heal.
Shifting eyes, tight throat, hiding my face as I watch the class make fun of a girl for sharing her issues about PTSD
Bombs all around me
Shrapnel hits my skin
I can feel my life fading
I’m about to give in
Then my Corpsman came
There is something wrong with my insides
They are too still, too silent
The wind blows and my brain tries to compensate so it has become my skin, my shield
it complains
jesus it's cold
There is something wrong with my insides
They are too still, too silent
The wind blows and my brain tries to compensate so it has become my skin, my shield
it complains
jesus it's cold
People use the word "crazy" like it's a drug."Did you see that video? It was so crazy!" "That exam was crazy hard, I don't think I passed."
Evil thoughts but love in the heart
This shits about to tear me apart
from my brain im insane a basket case
you wont like this hate\ the energy i bring
You all sit back an see the things you want to see
You have no clue what we can all be
inside this downward slide I confide
that your all enemies in my eyes
Soldier Who
Soldier who trains all day and night
And counts the days until departure
who is conditioned and unyielding
who is a dog tag and bayonet
whose hair is always shaved
Broken home
Broken heart
Torn from the inside out
Just ripped apart
………………………………..
You’re behind my scars
shut them out, as I suffer to breathe
Where are the words?
Can we talk instead of scream?
My opinion remains unheard
The violent escapade
on the frigid ground, I laid
he charged at me,
Curled up shaking no where to hide,
cold steel and brass next to my side.
Headphones in but hearing the screams,
red stained dirt vivid in my dreams.
Not you but ME I shoud have died.
Some days I imagine a field of glassendless and shimmering:whispers on the wind of the children who once playedof the women who once loved.Some days I imagine a sky of graynuclear ash
Her condition is that she is a walking contradiction, for she is a soul burning with hot fire and coals born into the coldest winter ever.
She’s living in hell amongst demons yet some say she looks heavenly.
Hey little birdy,
The one by my window;
I see your colourless wings so sturdy
And those dark eyes so hollow.
Birdy, take me with you.
I want your freedom;
I want to fly in the blue.
There's something less than vaguely human on this face
Something that speaks to terror and violence and hands curled as claws in the night, muscles twitching for blood
I am seventeen,
and I have never met one as young as me
to suffer from PTSD.
All I want is attention.
I just cause tension.
I'm faking it.
Exaggerating it.
For too long, anxiety and depression have been the rulers of my life.
A ruthless king and his queen, with faces of iron and eyes of flame.
Trauma is the groom, waiting for PTSD, his soon-to-be wife.
In the darkness and the rain,My life will never be the same.The driver crossed into my lane,And for my trauma is to blame.
What a beautiful color, red, she said
And smashed it down with her hand
Orange is pleasant as well, I can tell!
And crushed it according to plan.
Green, so keen, a fervent shade
When we got the call that he ended it all
My heavy tears flowed down my cheeks.
My pen and paper took the pain as my hands shook.
Childhood dreams from the soul
before p.t.s.d had swallowed me whole,
going to save the world from itself,
but now I can't even save me myself.
After 'he' had robbed me of my life,
Look in a mirror and see a monster
The hate inside, fighting to take control
In school they don’t see, at least not really
They see a person not a monster
I see so much of him inside of me
He says he’s broken all the time,
there’s something wrong with his head:
There are monsters in there
that push to get out.
It’s almost funny
because he’s the most whole person I’ve known.
I wobble my way down the narrow hallway
my thoughts are an epic mess
the bright light I'm following is so far away
yet I feel I can grasp it I must confess.
Seeing him walk away from me again
Never knowing if he will return
All they say to me is he is a Hero
But I can see him pulling away from me
Hello my name is Benjamin
Like I don’t know what rhymes with Benjamin
Or this bed I’m in
All I know is how dead I’ve been
It's a whole other world where you live, a web you spun with your own intent.
Your lungs can breathe easily here and it's easy to hide in the dark.
There are faces swimming in your vision
Memories you'd much rather forget
Nightmares in the daytime
Tears you always regret
They taunt you with their freedom
The injustice of reality
If only I knew what to do with my life and everything else that comes my way
There be no problems, no crossroads, just me in a daze
Thinking about the next step, everyone just on the lookout …to see if I fail or if I fall out
Inside me there's a life
I may not give
the chance
To live nor
To be a kid
Nor To grow big
I feel you baby
Mommy is here
Yet please my child
Understand
This world is evil
I don't know who I am
The white in my life blew out
I don't know where I stand
At thirteen my soul was left in doubt
The only white
The purity
The innocence... of me
Taken in the dark
