May 8th, 2012

On May 8th, 2012,

The sudden swerve of the tires,

The sudden slam of the brakes,

Were not fast enough for a car to avoid hitting me.

It left behind pools of blood,

That seeped into the cement,

That were washed away by the rain.

It left behind patches of brain tissue.

That were packed with memories.

That died in the span of seconds.

Red blood cells can be replaced.

The same could not be said of neurons.

What was left after they died,

Was simply empty space,

That failed to yank back memories before they vanished.

What was never at risk,

Safely guarded in the crevices of my brain,

Was my personality.

My shyness, my sarcasm, my seriousness.

But that came at a cost.

A cost that could only be paid by letting the surface layers be stripped away.

Layers that contained the alphabet, the numbers, most of the facts I learned in school.

What is a pronoun?

What is 1 + 2?

What is a molecule?

The phrase, “What is?”

Screamed at my brain, clawing through the white matter,

To find answers that weren’t there anymore.

Layers that contained many of the ‘when’, the ‘where’, the ‘what’, the ‘who’ of my life.

Why did my mother, my brother, my friends visit?

Why didn’t my dad?

Why? Because I forgot he died when I was 9.

Everyone felt the need to cram my head with stories,

But experiences can never be condensed into words.

Words can’t replace what once was.

Words can’t cauterize the misery.

But there is a time in recovery,

When it felt like I was going to suffocate in the hospital,

When I had to resist the urge to attack the nurses who just wanted to ask,  how was I feeling?

That I knew, I had to move on.

I moved on with the knowledge that there is still scarring in my brain.

Knowledge that my brain cells are still dying.

That my epilepsy is still getting worse.

I moved on with fear nipping at my feet.

Fear of not having friends.

Of not getting a job.

Fear that turned into desperation.

That drives me to be assertive.

To be persistent.

To be whatever it takes,

To get past May 8,

And to get where I want to go.