You Never Told Anyone

You never talked about it with any of the others.  You didn't tell them about my accident.  My broken brain.  That I was lucky to have walked away, to be alive, no longer working but functioning.  You never told them.  You left it for me to tell.  The awkward silences.  They hadn't even been told that I was in an accident.  Never mind that my career got smashed up along with the car.  Retired.  The junkyard.  Kaput.  What did you tell them if they asked?  That I'm fine, living in the cold country on a farm.  Away from civilization.  If they even asked.  I am the forgotten one.  Invisible.  Quiet.  Disappearing.

I know they asked about her.  She has a fancy job.  A fancy car.  A manly man of a husband. She's going places, that one is.  You were always so proud of her.  She is gifted. Beautiful.  Wonderful.  You wore your pride on your sleeve.  You never hid it.  Even in these moments when you are closest to death, you still don't.  She is larger than life.  All consuming.  Her problems consume you.  Everyone knows about the flood that ate her living room.  Everyone.  

Her brain is intact.  She's never had to use a cane.  She's never had to fight the System.  She's never been on a picket line with signs and comrades around her in masks all screaming "Feck the System" in one terrible silent voice, arms and hands moving to form the words that too soon die in the throat.  She's never been tested.  Her brain is not broken.  She is enviable.

My brain is broken.  I am awkward.  Falling.  With twisted words and too-loud laughter inserted at the wrong places in too-long conversations.  Lost in a sea of faces that all merge into each other.  Knocked over by putrid pink drifting up from the scummy floor of the public rest room.  In the corner, hiding my eyes from the sun.  Hiding under my hat.  Darting away from the glare.  This is who I have become. 

I am the forgotten one.  But no longer invisible, quiet, silent, good, disappearing.  I am enraged.  I am the one on the picket lines with signs and comrades around me in masks all screaming "Feck the System" in one terrible silent voice, arms and hands moving to form the words that too soon die in the wind.  You forgot to tell them about my car accident, my broken brain.  You forgot to tell them that I've had to fight for every damn thing I've got.  You forgot to tell them that the System is not a free ride.  That every day is hard work.  That I have to remind my brain to think and my body to move.  That rhythm is not spontaneous, that every movement is artificial.  That nothing is automatic anymore.

I am the one on the picket lines with signs and comrades around me in masks all screaming "Feck the System" in one terrible silent voice, arms and hands moving to form the words that too soon--
You forgot to tell them.  But I haven't forgotten.  We rise up together, comrades in masks with signs with rage with flags.  We rise up and demand to be seen, heard, acknowledged.  We rise up together a crippled mass of hurt and twisted pain.  We rise up together beautiful in our rage.

sapphoq healing t.b.i.