Post Traumatic Stress Disorder By Thomas Hill Poem by Scott Sims

Bang
My body was in a mid air somersault:
Time stopped - almost seeming to collapse in on itself
Earth became sky
Clouds became ground
The day that the bomb blew,
My whole world was turned on my head.

Bang
The doctor says that the explosion pushed me over the edge.
You see, post traumatic stress stretched these nerves thin, and now...
There's a war being waged in my mind.

Bang
Sometimes it feels like there's nothing in my brain but dirt and destruction.
Bullets clumping thunderous against my cranium
Guns win the battle but the dead win the war
They sit in my cerebrum 60 somethin soldiers
Who were forced to face fear at the nose of my gun

Bang
My memory is a minefield
Bang
My memory is a minefield
Bang
It was all for my country.
I'm a man with a star spangled strangled mind,
So don't mind me walking out of the bar at ten thirty a.m.
I'm a hero.
Bang
Turned to heroin
Turned to liquor
Turned to my wife and kids with nuclear knuckles and the bomb of a backhand.

Bang
I was fired from my desk job for being more weapon than worker.
My fridge looks like an unattended obligation.
My kids look like the American Dream night terror.

Bang
It's hard to hold onto your sanity when all
The sand you've seen is caked with blood
That you make visible.

Bang
The army will make a machine out of you
Send you to be all shotgun glory.
Then take the human right up out of you
And make you more man of steel than man of strength.

Bang
Time stopped
Bang
Time stopped
Bang
Time stopped almost seemed to collapse in on itself
The doctor says that i got post traumatic stress disorder
So my brain is taking orders that no one is giving
I was called back in 2005
My mind never left its post