June 2024 Emily Bane

Content warning: Detailed description of injury

I Have

By Emily Bane

Have you ever felt the tug
Of loose snow beneath your tires?
Or had your car drift
Off the road, towards a pole?

I have.

Do you know the sound of metal
Crunching against wood?
Have you felt yourself thrown forward,
Had your jaw split by the wheel?
Have you seen wood splintering, and heard
Glass shattering into ten thousand times ten thousand parts?

Even now that sound still rings in my ears.

Have you felt those glass shards bite
Into your face?
Have you felt a certain splitting,
Like the cracking of an egg,
As your skull split open from above one ear
To under the opposite eye?

I have.

Has your face ever been so shattered
That your left eye was hanging free?

Mine has.

Have you ever felt the panic
Of sinking into darkness unexplored?
Have you danced with death?

I hope you haven’t.

Have you visited the realm of stillness
Where there is no sound, no light?
Have you wandered in that empty void
For eight days?
Have you had to live through that?
Have you ever felt such pain?

I lived it.

Have you stood before a mirror,
Wincing at the sight
Of a giant scar
Displayed on your throat?
Have you watched it travel up
And down? With every swallow,
Every gulp?

Have you run your hand across your face,
And felt the many marks
From where the glass bit in?
Have you felt the sharp point of glass
Finally working out, from beneath your skin?

Can you imagine how that must feel?

Have you ever had a child come,
So innocent and sweet,
Have they asked about the “boo-boo”
On your arm?
I struggled with how to answer,
Can you picture what you would say?

Have you had a teen just stand
And stare?
Have you heard the dreadful silence
As they wonder why the scar is there?

How would you respond?

Have you seen the sympathetic glances
From those unsure of what to say?
Can you picture that occurring twenty-eight times,
In a single day?

It has happened.
I have seen,
I have heard,
I have felt,
All of that.
I lived…
When I should have died.
I bear scars…
But I am still alive.