Brain Bleeds
By Jan Crawford
Twelve years ago
since blood twice stunned my brain
into an absence of being for days
emerging into lights too bright
A skull no longer entirely mine
in a strange world of busy voices
Weeks later
slowly returning to a life I had forgotten
as the ambulance turned onto Barrow Street
a childlike wave of elation surprised me
Realizing it looked as if I was going to live
and I was going to return to this enchanted place
Three months later
after my neurosurgeon’s grave warning
this next surgery could sweep me wildly
into an even more centerless sea
two notes appeared in my minds shifting sands
Apologies to those who deserved more from me
and gratitude for every remembered kindness
A few days later
awakening from anesthetic’s dizzying fog
surprised by this body’s return again,
more or less, to its familiar reality
and the faces it turns out not left behind
A relieved joy in this renewed day of life
and an even deeper sense of consent
Over the years
there are of course moments
of searing shame when memory
is no longer in its rightful place
and the body’s confusion arises
Amid this increasingly drunken gait
with fingertips numb beyond reliability
Yet today
one curious and enduring gift
being flooded with more simple space
and by less seduction toward suffering
under this titanium plate’s protection
Tired identities unwilling to return
so magnetically to their familiar positions
And more each day
less rooted now the illusion of certainty,
no longer needed, willingly crumbles
and primal forces flow more freely
released enough, a tenderness arises
Toward even the most raggedy edges
of the former self’s anxious demands
