1991

1991

---

My mind ---

I think that's
the word I look
for. I hope it is,
anyway.

My mind, as
I try to say,
wobbles.

Words come hard
or ... they don't
come at all.
And if by chance
the proper term---

or nearly proper,
approximately proper---

arrives in time,
the tongue does
not know what to do.

It wraps around
itself, and the word it
wrestles (not nearly
to the ground, it seems)
proves impossible
to manage---

and out comes,
well, gibberish.

There. I said it.
Sorry about that.
                                     ---barbsdad
---

I was
then a bit,
well,
you could say
overweight.

Heavy.

Not gross, mind you,
but
yes, by my standards
overweight.

And, some might add,
to
a considerable degree.

---

Played some tennis.

Had
taken
lessons,
hoping
to
gain
a sliver
of fitness,

a slice of it
(just maybe)
if I kept at it,

and
perhaps

the lapse
of a few pounds.

You know,
erase some load from off
my tired legs.

---

I ran for a hard-hit ball,
made my counter thwack,
but then
tripped over my trailing feet
and fell …

---

Yet conscious,
I was
taken to Emergency.
Who
said they---

their machines,
in other words---

could find nothing
wrong. But …
But I knew better. Oh, did I!

Know
better, that is.

---

I still know
better.

Did from the instant
the upper back
of my bald head
struck
the tennis court's
unforgiving floor.

Knew
I’d lost something;
that
my brain had sustained
its damage.

Its
irretrievable,
can't-be-repaired,
damnable-type
crappy damage.

---

The game timed out.

I got my
self up, walked
to the stone bench at
the side of the court,
sat down. And then.
Then wept.

Sobbed.

Oh, no, not for pain,
you see;
there was very little,
near to none.

Really a minor blessing, that.

I wept
to grieve my loss. Felt
my self stripped of something,
somehow lessened
by an amount important.

Felt a part of who
I was
was already gone
missing. Dead. Kaput.

Absent. Without my leave.

With
no word
of
good-bye.
Nor
a single
wave.

A part a part
no longer.

---

Meaning
then:

you know, 1991.

It,
whatever it
was,
being no longer
in
existence.

Not
here.

Gone.

---

And so I mourned.

---

My friend drove me to
the hospital
white on a hill.

People
in starched medical whites,

with grim, long,
and
sometimes smiling-friendly,
sympathetic faces,

work there.

---

Nothing, they said. And then
they billed me after.

Oh, yeah. Nothing. Sure.

---

It’s been
a long, long,
much too long struggle---

grind, affair,
encounter---

with lots of twisty
turns spotted here

and
there

for to ambush
me into keeping my speed
well below the partial-recovery,
snail's pace-imposed limits … but

I’m here.
Really.

Really am.

Mostly. Well, more than partly. At least
more than that.

The effort continues. Makes life
more interesting, actually. Really
actually.

And I mean it.

---

My history's divided:

A sharp cut between
before injury,
BI,
and after---

after
the death,
that is---

AI.

There exists
the time before, TB,
the time after, TA.

Though in fun I like
to say pre and post, as in PI and PI.

---

When I jest in that way, people don't laugh.

---

I practice living my life.

Exercise
my mental works.

Explore
my altered,
my still-feeling-new,
self.

Feeling strangely
raw yet, even after so much time
has passed.

I try fresh things
to see
if or when
they might fit.

Persevere. Swim on.
Onward I mean. Test
my self. Myself.

Often.

Slap my hands
together, laugh
to celebrate my wins.

Tolerate quite well my less-than-wins.
My not-wins.

My pseudos, too.

Enjoy the process.
You know, the journey.

I mean not the trip
from here to there;
I mean instead the run,
the walk---

you know,
the trip itself---

from here to no-end.

---

A good thing,
a fine thing.

A wonderful thing.
Really.

It is.

---

And along the way I post at neopoet, by gosh.

---

I do do that,
yup;
yup,
I do, I do.

That.