Thursday, March 26, 2015

I Am Just a Head

    after they put the right side of my skull back on. worst pain i've ever felt.


If you are Facebook friends with me, you have probably read this poem already. It still needs a lot of work, but it was the first thing I wrote when I started writing. It is about my first memories upon waking up from my coma.


I am just a head  

Colors hazy. 
Lights brighter. 
I can only make out family members by their voices.

Muffled.

Recognized from a place as far away
as home. 
Complete darkness never comes.  
Sounds louder.
the swoossh of the ventilator

The beeps on my leads.

Doors opening and closing.

The every fifteen-minute-motorized-mechanical vibe of the blood pressure cuff.

Smells the most potent of all. 

When one nurse leans over me, 
I greedily breath her in.
cinnamon chewing gum,
cigarette smoke, 
the inside of a purse. 

Her hair-black coils 
rough against my face,
my neck 
striped, scabbed,
Surrendered. 

The Milky vomit of the feed that 
            D
               R
                   I
                      P
                         S

Down my nose

Baby powder-latex gloves-urine. 

The food eaten in front of me that I cannot eat.

I ask to watch the Kardashians because that was my favorite guilty pleasure before I was here in this place. A nurse says, "I can't imagine any of them having to go through something like this. They couldn't."

In this particular episode, they are discussing rumors of Kim having butt implants. 


Glossy hair extensions. 
Tan skin. 
Perfectly arched brows.
Plush couches. 
Designer clothes
Health

A study in contrast:. 

Feeding tubes. 
Hospital gowns.
Catheter bags. 
Sisters crying in the hallway. 
Shaved baby bird heads 
with spinal fluid seeping
slow, seeping metal.  

I ask my mother when I can go back to school and work. She tells me she withdrew me from school and put me on leave from work.

There was a time when anger was closed door sullen.

New this gagged- hog-tied-frustration. 

She doesn't have the heart to tell me the doctor tells her I'll never 
breath on my own
move 
feel
talk 
or 
eat again.  

But, she lies as mothers do and says, "You were in a really bad wreck, honey. It will probably take a few months, then you can go back."

I cry for the first time. I ask her to kill me.

Every time I wake, I ask where my boyfriend is.  I need him there. We haven't  spent a day apart in two years. Off in rehabilitation in another state, I am lonely in a way I've  never felt. I can't understand what is more important than being with me.

We are In love.

So Mama lets me call him.

I have no voice.

I mouth words to her to tell him. All I can say is, "I love you" over and over again. When I finally hear his voice call me our favorite pet name "pup,"  I sleep easy through the night.  

Neurons firing 
memories deleted from my hard drive 
My spinal cord a dead whale, 
belly-up,
swelling
nerves scrambling 
lost in roads it has never travelled. 

Disorientation. 

I am unable to tell where my body is in space. 

I am sterile. 
White. 
Cleansed. 
Purer than I've ever been. 
The Virgin Mary. 

Two things happened next: I am able to wiggle my toes and wake up out of a dead sleep when I feel my nurse touch my arm.

Still mainly a head. But a little bit of an arm and some toes leaves and invisible smirk.

                       the car....
 me at about 100 pounds, still with a feeding tube and tracheotomy and half my skull still missing. hence that sexy helmet...


Editor's note: I'm planning on writing a memoir, and this will probably be a part of it. I already have a very kind man that has offered to help me with a publisher! I just need that motivation…:)

2 comments:

  1. Wow, Bethany. Please continue to share your story I have read that you have do a video blog. That would be AWESOME!

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    1. Sorry for the typo. .. I read that you " may" do a video blog or had thought about it.

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