His senses hold him prisoner,  
Overwhelmed and alone.  
The walls are his burden;  
The light, too much to bear.  

The soaked linen of yesterday’s news,  
Stained with fear from battles before—  
An old uniform hangs alone,  
Boots polished beside paper awards.  

Headlights cast broken shadows,  
Each a spectre of the past.  
Empty scotch bottles and cigarette burns  
Mark a slow crawl to solitude.  

Light burns through a slither 
His heart beats through the walls.  
Strangled by the sirens  
That triggered him before.  

He needs to be cradled,  
Yet no hand reaches for him.  
He sways back and forth,  
A pendulum of grief.  

Screams, muted by paralysis;  
Silence pervades the void.  
Fractured by a rasping breath  
And a crescendo of emotions.  

The warning bells pass—  
They did not come for him.  
His fragile breath of sorrow  
Whispers to an empty room.  

By Darren Wall ©

Through shards of glass—distorted clear—
The breath of hope alights,
A fleeting second—woven near,
Then swept in endless flight.

The wing of Remorse, black and wide,
Soars grave—yet softly falls,
While stillness sings where beggars bide,
Their truth in whispered calls.

A fragile bird—its trembling wing—
Descends on open palm,
And in its light—a sacred thing—
The universe is calm.

I weep, and diamonds touch the soil
Of budding hands below,
Their petals rise as mine recoil—
In steady, fading flow.

Dawn casts its gold—a quiet flame—
Upon a barren lane,
Where every branch, by birth reclaimed,
Shudders with joy, not pain.

Oh, breathe! Into the desert womb,
Where life is yet to stir;
Where time is blood—a crimson bloom—
The cosmos’ whisperer.

The lips part faint—the mist exhaled,
Through forests memory-bound,
As scars arise—like ghosts unveiled,
Their echoes all around.

The wolves approach, their foaming jaws—
A temple left to fear,
Where shadows roam and light withdraws,
To eclipse the mind’s veneer.

But truth lies not in mirrored eyes—
Nor past, nor future’s haze;
It lives in fragments, unadvised,
Beyond the jealous gaze.

We float, we fall—we rise, we cease,
And yet, within this span,
The realness of this moment’s peace
Holds all that ever can.

My husband sits for days on end,
Staring through his vacant friend.
My tearful words fall alone,
His mind resides in combat zone.

A man replaced by shell so cold,
Numbed by scars of war untold.
Violent dreams he lives each night,
Lashing out at all in sight.

He returns to war inside his head,
Trauma stained by all the bloodshed.
A trigger pulled, his mind released,
Begging for all thoughts to cease.

His scars remain, but can't be seen,
Buried deep inside his dreams.
I wish that I, could set him free,
From the damaging effects of PTSD.

I pray for the day he's finally home,
So the trauma of war can leave us alone.

By Darren Wall