Parted Ways....

Parted Ways

When Steve returned home from Vietnam,
he did not recognize his parents' house anymore,
because it was vacant of childhood memories.
He turned 19 in Vietnam.
Two years before that he picked up a fumble
and ran for a touchdown.
 From the senior prom to Vietnam.
He eventually picked up the drink, like he did that
fumble, and ran with it through jobs and relationships.
Along the way, he met Anne and got married.
She had a secret that was as traumatic as Steve's.
Steve had been raped and betrayed by the Fatherland,
and Anne had been raped and betrayed by her Father.
Trampled and molested--the unforgivable.
 From one war zone to another.
When the multiplying pain got so hurtful,
and their traumas got so intertwined,
they parted ways.
They could never escape their past,
a past that had now doubled with so
much suffering.
You see, they took their pain out on each other.
Intelligence can be so vindictive, when great
suffering is so subconscious.
It turns into a war zone of resentments.
Every trauma is relived as it is miss directed
at another human being, when so much
of their pain was already there long before
they ever met each other.
War Zones.
Vacant.
Parted Ways.
Until death do us part.

By Mike Hastie
Army Medic Vietnam
Full Disclosure
October 23, 2017

Photograph by Mike Hastie
Dedication of Vietnam Memorial
Portland, Oregon 1988