PTSD v.2

Falling Awake 1991 (New Jersey)

Free verse

Four years elapsed,
Since the world collapsed,
And I still can’t delete it,
Delete it from my head.

The concrete impaction,
One solitary action,
From able to chained,
Chained to his deathbed.

And I’m disturbed by the memories,
Sad for the suffering–

                For his suffering,
                For their suffering,
                For the collective rippling of suffering…

Tragedy inspires, I’m told,
But its message is lost upon me,
Blurred in darkness,
A stop-motion picture,
Haunting me, frame by frame.

Homing in on this harrowing loss,
I find my focus will never sharpen,
Just like he will never come back,
And so, I’m left fixating on that which
I can neither fully remember nor fail to forget.

About this poem

This poem is about my experience with my boyfriend's passing from a suicide attempt that left him paralyzed and later, dead.

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Written on January 14, 2024

Submitted by FallingAwake on January 14, 2024

: 41 sec read
: 17 Views

Quick analysis:

Scheme	AAXB CCXB XD DDD XXXXX XCXXX
Closest metre	Iambic tetrameter
Characters	748
Words	138
Stanzas	6
Stanza Lengths	4, 4, 2, 3, 5, 5

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Falling Awake

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luisestable1
This makes me think that some situations are so dramatic that to recover from them is very hard. This here is one of those situations. But one has to try to move on. The past is the past and even if it hurts too much, there is nothing one can do to change it. So the thing to do is to try to put it behind, though it is understood that this is easier said than done.
The tragedy of the happening is seen clearly in the lines of the poem. more »
LikeReply 13 months ago
- FallingAwake
  Yes, I have to wholeheartedly agree, sometimes there just is no silver lining and I'm trying to my best to learn to accept that. I'm doing okay-- it's been 4 years since his attempt and 9 since he passed and I'm finally able to start writing about it and working through it more deeply. This was a meaningful write for me, so I really do appreciate you taking the time to leave feedback, and even more so I appreciate your advice. more »
  LikeReply3 months ago

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"PTSD v.2" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/178648/ptsd-v.2>.

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