Analysis of PTSD Warriors
Met a true comrade who honoured me a great honour.
After he listened to confessions of my finest hours,
He saw me as a veteran, called me a true one percenter.
As we shared horrors of each of our stories,
Then stared in honour at each of our courage.
Taken back was I the surreal feel of this moment.
Quickly I grasped the impact of his statement.
For years I had worn the same PTSD label,
Being pigeon holed as the most mentally unstable.
Both of us fighting a battle for some normality,
In a body that failed because of burnt out nerve endings.
One of us proud to protect and honour our country,
One of us proud to survive some of your nightmares.
Without unconditional love for an army of people
Or the total cost of the devastation that has happened,
PTSD will destroy every fine person it has broken,
Beyond recognition of the person they once were.
To put a measure or compare one of our battles,
Is not something that can be measured with whose hell.
Instead recognising we all faced challenges,
Opening our eyes to the depths of destruction,
To our lives, our families, our friends.
Living on survival mode just trying to stay here,
Fighting not only with the constant triggers,
Flashbacks, memory loss, lots of aches and confusion.
Paranoia, fear causing your worst kind of delusions.
Pills, pills, pills you need to be heavily sedated!
Yet free to heal with patience and understanding.
Don’t get ahead of yourself, you have not quite suffered yet!
Although we recognise you have been through quite a bit,
You know unless you are one of the easy, not too broken,
We won’t waste our time trying to mend the unspoken.
Your epic life will just be another wasted token
And a reminder that you will soon be forgotten.
Scheme | ABAXXCC DDXXAX DXEAXX XEXABEX XXXXEE EE |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1011111011 101101010111010 11110100110111 111101111010 11011111010 1011100111110 10110011110 1111101110 10101101100010 1111001011100 00101101111110 1111101011010 11111011111 01010011110110 10101100101110 11011001101110 010101010110 11010101111010 111011110111 011111100 1001011011010 110110100101 1010101110111 10110101010 110011110010 0101101111010 1111111100010 11111100010 11011011111101 1111111101 110111110101110 11110110110010 11011110101010 0001011111010 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 1,731 |
Words | 346 |
Sentences | 18 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 7, 6, 6, 7, 6, 2 |
Lines Amount | 34 |
Letters per line (avg) | 40 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 228 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 52 |
About this poem
I wrote this with and in honour of a friend who was a peacekeeper in East Timor.
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Written on November 11, 2016
Submitted by Neomortalgirl on April 21, 2022
Modified on April 12, 2023
- 1:43 min read
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"PTSD Warriors" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/125234/ptsd-warriors>.
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