Is it fog or smoke
A fire or cold
Murkiness
In this brainscape
Long since abandoned
By the heroes of battles
The ones that said
“Hey, did you not see
So and so
Sleepy in Period 1,
Laughing by 3,
Sullen in 4,
Only to be delirious at Lunch?”
He cleaned his gun
As she smiled wryly.
“This one is odd no doubt,”
They agreed.
“Look,” he said,
“Foo fighters.”
They looked up together.
Synaptic sentries
Exchanged fire.
“Hey, so and so is erudite now,”
she said, positioning her bayonet.
“Must be English,” he replied.
“I think they’re reading Hamlet.”
“Do you think so and so will make it?”
he said, raising an eyebrow.
“You mean?” She twisted her face.
“Yeah.” He was pained to admit the question.
“It’s too early to tell.”
“How long?” He wondered.
“Check back in 25 years.”
“That long?”
The air rattled with gunfire,
Origin location unknown.
She was gravely injured.
He pressed his palm on her wound.
Her mouth gurgled with warm red.
Tears steamed his eyes
Don’t go. Not yet.
“I’ll see you on the other side,” she said.
Her body stiffened, then slowly relaxed into a wet exhale.
He howled.
25 years had passed.
The gloom had cleared.
Up for good?
So and so wasn’t sure.
It was still too new.
The crosses were far older.
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I have encountered people with PTSD, generally veterans from Vietnam. What they tell me is consistent with the shock they felt when encountering horrors of war they never expected from a buddy being shot right next to them and dying to firing into a hooch and going inside and finding a mother and baby dead from his gunfire. One friend had to crawl into tunnels and place charges to blow them up. He said to me, "Sometimes the Vietcong kept village prisoners in those tunnels." His nightmares were about killing those innocent people.
I have little trouble understanding the deep meaning of your poem with the specifics you have revealed, so I cannot comment legitimately on what you wrote. It's personal for you and those others that may have been involved. Are you both bipolar with PTSD?
Ron