A Mind Full of Echoes

a poem about survival, trauma, and the search for peace inside a restless mind.

Sometimes my mind is loud with nothing,
A scatter of thoughts like broken glass.
Not sharp enough to cut,
But enough to make me bleed anyway.

I drown the silence in music,
Hide in games where I can’t be touched.
Because when it’s quiet,
The nightmares remember me.

I run through smoke and screams,
Loved ones fall.
My fists swing like feathers,
My arms freeze like I’ve never known power.

Maybe it’s the man who took too much,
The father who never showed.
The bullet that never left my ribs,
The uniform I wore with silent wounds.

Maybe it’s being told
That I’m not enough.
Not a man.
Not worth the fight.

I have four reasons to live.
They call me Daddy.
But even love doesn’t always fill
The hollow places inside me.

Still, I fight.
Still, I wake.
Still, I try.
And that has to mean something.