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Paul F. McCann

Resurface Of The Soul

It’s a bit funny don’t you think coming back from a war trying to forget what happened
when you know for sure no one really understands exactly how you feel.
You still feel hurt and you still roll around in the dirt and smell the stink
but you bury it away inside yourself in some deep shaft were you hope in time it will heal.

At the end of the day you say goodnight to your wife and close your eyes
to the grubby black grime and the slippery slime and remember it’s for better or for worse.
A soldier’s sleep never comes easy and sometimes in fright you awake in the night
shaking and soaked in sweat and crawl out of bed and go to quench a desperate thirst.

Then you end up in some therapy session were they say you’ve got to put it all behind you.
So you dig your way out from the shaft and try to put your best foot first.
Then trapped between divorce and a lonely place you try to hang up your helmet
and begin to put away pictures from the past with pain enough to make your heart burst.

So all of your emotions are brought to the surface for everyone to see
but the hurt remains buried deep and still no one really understands how you feel.
Then you find that you’re not on your own and each day you regain a little more ground
with each small step that kept you sane until it was time for you to begin to heal.

Soon happy days returned as did your wife who began to extract the effects of war from you
and as they left so did all the memories that brought you grief and pain.
For better or for worse the divorce never happened and kids arrived to fill the lonely place
in your heart and then you resurfaced from your soul, back to life again.