A Place to Share

Patches of Me
I search the valleys of my mind
for the Me I left behind-
Blackness came so very fast
tangled metal and broken glass-
I screamed my daughter's name, and then
the blackness claimed me once again.
Out of coma I woke to find
I hadn't left my life behind.
Not entirely, at least,
just a very major piece.
The part that remembers, thinks and smiles-
So far away- a million miles-
I drift now through fragmented days,
random memories like sunlit rays-
My daughter's laugh, a place, a name;
I know I'll never be the same.
I live like someone very old,
with fear that makes my blood run cold.
I've heard of Limbo, but never knew,
that one day I would live there too.
I have alot of company,
brain injured folks in here with me.
You can visit, but won't care to stay
in the world where we live every day.
I'm still in here! Look! Can't you see?
Inside the new and different me.
Perhaps the fog will lift someday,
even a bit, I hope and pray.
Don't glibly say "Forget the Past",
you really don't know what you ask.
Time scraps, vignettes light and dark,
sewn together by the heart.
Memories, some vague, some clear,
One sewn with hope, one with a tear.
To be real, my quilt needs them all-
bright and dim, big and small.
My daughter's screams, the siren's wail,
seem like some macabre tale.
I'd slipped away, I can't recall
the worst moments of my life at all.
When I could finally speak, I cried,
"Is she okay?","Oh, yes" they lied.
My priest came back, and then I knew
At least she lived, that much was true.
Thank you, God, for saving her
I struggled to pray through a thick, dark blur.
We both survived, my baby and me,
just nothing like we used to be.
Look hard in the mist, and there you'll find us
trying to put all the pain behind us.
Like sunrise on a cloudy day,
it's hard to see us through the gray-
don't let the patches fade away.

Marie Slater