Surprise and trauma can be identical twins,
and just as hard to tell apart.

 A body moves through the air differently than through water, meaning 
Water holds you, surrounds you, suspends you,

while air is like time, yours
while you have it.

When you are flying through the air, there is room, if you are lucky, to realize
that this is not how you are going to die.  That you are not dying this way.

You have never liked cars very much
You like them even less now.

When you break a bone, it becomes your focus, and when you break 5, 6, 7
It becomes the broken lens in which you see your life through.  

Just like when your hospital room becomes filled with flowers and people
you have known since you were a child and

people you have worked with, eaten dinner with, laughed with,
learned how to fall and get up again with,

loved loved loved, birthed and met
through words and art and music and stories 

And you realize, lying in your hospital bed, with your one good arm and your one good leg, that this could be your wake, 

how lucky you are again, so goddamn lucky,
to be in attendance. 

You try not to think about the driver, they guy who bent down behind you and said,
 I’m so sorry.  I didn’t see you, and you heard the truth of that, the fact of that,

but then he drove away.  You try not to think about what his life is like. 
Yours is hard enough. Yours is all you’ve got.

And you know to your broken core, beauty and humanity is what saves us, is
what’s saving us all.

jks 12/12/2024