PTSD and the Vietnam War!

A former Marine I recently met, Frank Lazzaro, who’d served in the Vietnam war. shared this poem he’d written on PTSD some time ago. He told me I could share it if I wished to. I did think it was pretty good and definitely worth sharing, so I decided to post it here. I hope you enjoy it.

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Shadow

What is it I see in the recesses of my mind?

A form, eerie and frightful,

From which there is no escape.

A shadow that follows me

From age to age

Haunting me, beckoning me,

Seducing me with its dream-like call.

Never ceasing, always present,

Chilling me to my very core.

Twilight to dawn this shadow waits,

Eager to pounce once more,

To render me scared and helpless. 

I resist to tears but to no avail

For this shadow is fearsome and relentless.

It has no face that I can see,

No form of hate.

A vapor not human, yet all too real

Ever there … haunting, haunting.

In the night it touches me,

Rousing me from sleep.

Sweat, like a mist, covers me.

Tears flow with soundless screams not heard

Like the dead that surrounds me.

I jump to met my adversary

But it’s only a shadow.

A memory of long ago

When youth was changed,

And time stood still.

Of death and loss so vivid.

Of war so fearfully fought so far away.

Now only a shadow that haunts me

In the recesses of my mind.

~ Frank Lazzaro