Blueprint for Healing

I’ve rebuilt engines, wired a home,
Framed up sheds with hands of stone.
I’ve tamed machines, I’ve braved the climb,
Outpaced the weight of wear and time.

But nothing buckled me like this—
The silent war, the hits I missed.
No smoke or flame, no outward scar,
Just echoes locked behind a bar.

PTSD—they gave it a name,
Like it’s a blueprint, just the same.
But wounds unseen don’t read like plans,
And healing isn’t built by hands.

It took more guts than steel and fire
To face the ghosts that never tire.
To sit with pain, to breathe through dread,
To meet the past I left for dead.

I tried to run—I tried to hide,
Behind the work, the sweat, the pride.
But pain will wait, it knows the way,
And finds you when the noise gives way.

So I turned in, not out this time,
Learned to climb a different kind of climb.
To trust, to cry, to not retreat,
To feel the ground beneath my feet.

Therapy sessions like stripped wires,
Exposing faults, re-routing fires.
Nights alone, but less afraid,
Forging peace from what remained.

And slowly, like a stubborn bolt,
Something shifted in the jolt.
The weight grew less, the fog drew back,
I found the path, rebuilt the track.

Now I stand, not free from pain,
But stronger for each broken chain.
Not perfect, no, but far from lost—
A man who paid the highest cost

And made it back, rebuilt and scarred,
With softer hands, but beating hard.
I am the proof, the living plan—
That even wreckage builds a man.

© 2025 Shawn Oen. All rights reserved.