Yusef Komunyakaa, the war poet, vividly describes his wavering emotions about the Vietnam War and his relationship to it as an African-American veteran American in the poem “Facing It”. Komunyakaa, the protagonist of his reflective, narrative poem, contemplates his past experiences as he walks around the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, struggling to hide his fiery emotions and remain hard and cold as a "stone." He writes a verse in a dark mood and, using metaphors and visual images, he paints a picture with his words for all to see. Komunyakaa uses various metaphors to get his message across and show the trauma and irrevocable effects that war can cause. From the first line, he uses the word "black" to describe his face, comparing it to the "black granite" of the memorial wall that he is trying to "[hide]" inside. He does this to make it immediately known that he is African American, and his racial identity adds to his struggles because many people did not respect him or consider him even a mildly heroic figure for fighting in the cruel Vietnam War. He fought alongside people who looked the other way and for a country that didn't even grant his fellow human beings the same rights and freedoms that the next white man would always have. What also lies beneath the surface of the dark granite bears witness to all the cruelty and loss of war, and this is something Komunyakaa shares with the wall. It “blends” into the wall, searching beyond the exterior to the interior of the stone, hiding itself and becoming one with the stone. As a veteran, he knows these men - their names etched on the wall - on a personal level, in a way that their family or friends didn't, even if he wasn't exactly familiar. .. middle of paper... ...have sympathy for all those lost and affected, but they can never have empathy. They're just there to see the names, and while they may be sad, they'll never really understand them. Yusef Komunyakaa reflects on his experiences in the Vietnam War, describing his mixed emotions using vivid images and dark metaphors. He struggles throughout the poem, as indicated by the caesuras, as he tries to suppress his emotions as he would if he were fighting in the war. Komunyakaa shows the harsh reality of the consequences of being a soldier with eternal scars, both mental and physical, that can haunt and manifest someone. It also describes how all veterans, even if they don't know each other personally, can communicate with each other on a higher level of understanding than others who don't share similar experiences or struggles ever could. do it..