Jane Doe

Winding gravel road and murderous ditch.

Leaves floating gently; fences and dust; fear.

Soft wind carries no sounds but the skidding

Of the car and all the shattering screams.

The tree is still only half to its whole;

The other lost in the terror and crash.

Birds sitting in the branches and singing

Mimicking sirens and panicked, thin air.

Thunder talking above to remind me

What the helicopter said in the dark.

This scene is broken – Like I was that night.

Nine bones shattered in me – four in the neck.

What hurts ma’am? What hurts the most? Shine more light.

Please don’t move. Just stay with me and relax.

Jaws of life; CareFlite; ICU; "Jane Doe".

Pain; anxiety; healing; so broken.

Two years marched by – I finally return

to the spot that broke my body and mind

but not my spirit – never my spirit.

The tree and fence have not healed like I have.

Two long years of rehab and suffering

My journey is now at its end – thank God.

Two long years of pain and tears and nightmares

From a jerk of the wheel – out of control.

The birds’ song sounding so sweet to me now

The sirens are gone – just the sweet song left.

The thunder and helicopter noise left

With them. The sky is bright and opens up.

The tree will survive after destruction.

I have finally healed from destruction

At the spot that broke my body and mind

But not my spirit – never my spirit.

Alright, well. I tried. So this is the first poem I've written since the poetry unit back in what, 6th grade? Uhm, it went ok (on my end). Actually, I feel like I lucked out a little bit. I've had a lot going on in my head recently about the accident I was in -- and this served as a pretty good way to get it out. I just recently was released from physical therapy after going for 2 years, which has brought some really bittersweet feelings. I feel so thankful and blessed that I am finally back to functioning semi-normally -- but I'm also grappling with the fact that that accident ripped away 2 years of life from me. Every day since then has been a struggle for me - mentally and physically. Being in and out of doctors and therapists and rehab is a lot to just "take in stride". So to have "closed" that chapter of my life has been incredible. I just recently revisited the scene of the accident and couldn't believe the sensations it brought to me. It was overwhelming. I didn't remember a lot of the accident itself, but my friend Avery (who was the driver) took me to the spot and explained how things happened. "And this is where I lost control, and this is where we hit a tree and flipped, and this is the fence that pinned you inside the car..." All that great stuff. Anyway, this poem (as crappy as it probably is) was a really good release. And whether or not it's "good", I think that the whole point of poetry is to say what you want and need to say. And I did. I definitely had a lot more feelings and emotions than I had words for them. It's a challenge to put it into words, even more so to try to put it into a poem.

I haven't ever felt great about creative writing or writing poetry, so I was scared shitless of this assignment. Once I figured out what I wanted to talk about, it actually rolled pretty quickly. The more I wrote, the more emotions and snippets of memory came rushing to me. I could've written a lot more I think, but to be honest, I feel pretty embarrassed that my poem probably isn't as deep or lovely or complex as "real" poems are or my classmate's poems will be. So I felt like I should just "stop while I was ahead". Try not to hold it against me.

I can definitely relate to Shelley in feeling like my emotions are "above, below, or beyond words". It's a lot. Yeah. I am even lacking words as I type right now. The feeling of an EMT asking you what hurts and then realizing it's your neck that hurts. Will I be paralyzed? Am I disfigured? Being careflited to a hospital in a different city because they're the only one with a Level 1 trauma center (for the almost dead people) and being tagged as a Jane Doe because they didn't think I'd make it there alive. That's a lot to put into words in a poem.

As always, this R assignment has been a really cool experience. I was dreading it all weekend because writing a "greater romantic lyric" was something I didn't feel confident about. But it felt good to me. And I feel better now. Emptier without all those feelings flying around in me. And I did my best and learned a little something too. Go me. Go R assignments.