Unseen Scars: A Soldier’s Return
A poem
The plane touches down on home soil,
wheels kissing tarmac with a smoky embrace.
I step into the terminal, duffel bag heavy
with more than just fatigues and dog tags.
My family’s eyes search for the boy who left,
find instead a man assembled from spare parts,
held together with tactical tape and bravado.
In the car ride home, billboards hawk
fast food and faster lives. I scan rooftops
for snipers, see IEDs in discarded trash.
My mother chatters about cousin Tina’s wedding,
her voice a distant mortar round
in the no-man’s-land of my mind.
At night, sleep is a minefield I tiptoe through,
each dream a tripwire threatening to detonate
memories best left buried in foreign sands.
I wake to my own screams, tasting gunpowder
and regret, the sheets damp with sweat
that smells of fear and far-off places.
They say I’m home, but home is a concept
as alien as peace. I am a tourist in my own life,
reading maps of familiar streets with new eyes.
In the grocery store, I startle at dropped cans,
my hand reaching for a weapon that isn’t there.
The cashier’s “Thank you for your service”
lands like shrapnel, sharp and unwelcome.
My medic speaks of PTSD and readjustment,
her words a Morse code I struggle to decipher.
I nod and smile, a good soldier to the end,
while inside, the war rages on, endless as the desert.
Medals gather dust on my dresser,
poor compensation for the pieces of myself
left behind, buried in unmarked graves
of memory and conscience.
In the mirror, I see a stranger in familiar skin,
eyes that have witnessed too much,
hands that have done what can’t be undone.
I am a translation of myself, meaning lost
in the space between who I was and who I am,
a living testament to the fact that
you can leave the war, but the war never leaves you.
Poetry Genius Submissions — Submissions Guidelines. How to submit your poems for… | by Tom Kane | Poetry Genius | Medium
Poetry Genius Submissions — Submissions Guidelines. How to submit your poems for… | by Tom Kane | Poetry Genius | Medium
