Chicago Poetry Magazine –

"The P in PTSD Stands for" by Ron Reikki

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Title image shows a nightime view of Buckingham Fountain in Chicago.

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Published January 15th, 2025

The P in PTSD Stands for

by Ron Reikki

nothing, because it can't stand, its left leg lost
in the war that wasn't a war, but was. And the leg

echoes the war, is the war, is sitting across from me
in its absence, heavened, helled, purgatoried, some-

thing, but the rest of the body is there, warning me,
this waiting room where we wait, and we are waiters,

if lucky, if employed at all, the cliché that we're home-
less, less home and more here, waiting, in the V.A. room

where they will soon mispronounce our last names,
slaughter our last names like they slaughtered our

bodies, a man with no teeth, a man with no fingers,
a man with no Lord, a man with no life, but rent

to pay. I'm sorry. I'm ranting. I'm supposed to
tell you what the P stands for. Maybe it's the fence-

post that they tied us to while hazing – or is it hazing
or really torture? – the old rotten food poured over

our heads, the wrists half-Christed, the touching,
them watching, the laughter, a commitment to – is it

pain? ... PTSD is a four-letter word. So is every-
thing I can think to describe it. Piss thrown in eyes.

You see, in the military, they can do anything they
want to you. You see, in the military, especially

during a war, they can do anything they want to you.
On both sides. The first to go is always the pawn.

Ten of us died on the bases where I was stationed.
I'd sit in the back pews, when church was out of

service, and pray. I'd ask for forgiveness. And we
dropped over 88,000 tons of bombs. Tombs. Home-

less
is the word I'd use to describe how they treat
me at the V.A. I'm not. Just how I'm treated. In

neuroscience we learned images of the homeless trigger
the insula, the part of the brain that's associated

with disgust. One of my bunkmates was an ex-
pimp. He said he wanted to escape the life. Asked

him what he'd do once he got out. He said, Truth-
fully, probably go back to it.
You see, when you

join, you're poor. Then they make you disabled.
Then they send you back to where you came from:

poor and disabled. I asked him what he thought
about life in the military. He said, Can I swear?

I said, No, laughed. He thought about it, then said,
OK, if I can't swear and I only get one word, it's 'poop.'

We had one guy get impaled by a pipe. Another
guy walked into the rotating blades of a plane.

You see, those things go so fast that they become
invisible. His body just disappeared – mist, pink.


About the Poet
Ron Reikki resides in Dearborn, Michigan, United States.
Read the poet's biography on Ron Reikki's Artist Page.

This poem is included in Poetry World #11, published in the Wax Poetry and Art Library.

Previously published in Chicago Poetry Magazine:
A Rare Affair

by Kayla Trinidad

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