Terror holds no place in mine heart, not even as I am torn apart

  In the haunting shade of dream, half-remembered things unseen.

  Brutalized again I die, limbs from my bodies pried, and again I wake with open eyes, to see the same familiar skies, I breathe again now post-demise. Now I ask... Why?

  How can I know these terrible things? The mortal pain dismemberment brings

  In brutality my subconscious sings, black soul soaring on broken wings

  Choked, shot, stabbed, burned. All these scars I've honestly earned

  But crushed, drowned, speared and torn asunder? These are the pains that make me wonder

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  Just how many times have I truly died? Memories of the soul trapped inside?

  Visions of a future meant to turn the tide? Or merely old pains brought to light?

  Forget the pain, though I never shall, we all know that I'm not fully well.

  What of the this absence of fear? Despite death drawing ever near

  I dream in rationale numeric, what surer sign is there that I'm 'sick?'

  I know stress without worry, my critical mind refuses to hurry.

  Emotion has no place in my sleeping mind, even awake I must make the time

  to feel. Mundane reality such a boring meal.

  Loved once and never more, living in grey such a chore, my heart shattered without its paramour

  Was I always broken so deeply? A man with feelings? How unseemly.

  To ask is to answer, I once thought of love as a cancer.

  She grew my heart to record size but took it with her when she died

  And now I am hollow, the truth of my weakness bitter to swallow.

  I lived in life but a single day, how cruel it is to have that taken away.

  delightful paradox I live with of knowing that things suck but being totally indifferent on an empathic level is something I thank twice as often as I curse. "Oh no, I've been stabbed. Whelp, I guess I should do something about that now shouldn't I." Living with this duality of thought, a divide of logic and emotion, where I need to allow myself to feel anything beyond fleshsac tactile information is honestly kind of kickass right up until I remember what I don't have anymore. Granted, its like a 2/8 split of good vibes to bad so I skip a lot of being uber-depressed but still.

  that is something I've been deprived of for over 95% of my life bothers me. Not empathically mind you, I just have this logical appreciation that if I wasn't abused and neglected as a child I wouldn't have turned into what I am now. Knowing something doesn't necessarily mean it sinks in though. Having that love taken from me, the chance that I may never find anything to patch this gaping hole in me where I know something should be, it's a type of pain like no other.

  supposed to be about rather than another pity party. Considering the time of writing is ~3am, the nightmare is question tonight was me getting shelled by counter-battery fire in our howitzer's gun pit while we were supporting a defensive, our ammo igniting, me getting rag-dolled and crippled by the resultant explosion when we scatter while my troops die around me and my left leg gets mulched to bloody ribbons so I drag myself to a shell scrap in the rear lines and grit my teeth until the shelling stops and hostile infantry close on me and I get to experience the joys of being shot, stabbed, burned, ripped apart by shrapnel and that fun woozy death from blood loss. In short, it was a real fun time right until I woke up to all my real world pains and aches. And not that horrific psychological trauma is a contest or anything, but I wouldn't even put that on my top ten. So I'm kind of interested in what you 'normal' people have nightmares about.