And So It Began

As part of The Story of Why I'm Writing About Chronic Pain, I present to you a twenty-two part poem, which many of you may have already read, called "The Fall". It took me eighteen years to find words to describe the day I had a life-altering snow skiing accident when I was fourteen and then it came pouring out of me in one night... the middle of the night of October 12, 1991.

I hope this explains a bit about the journey I've been on all my life. At the very least, I hope you enjoy the poems! And, so as not to deaden your eyes or brains, I post here the first three of the group.

ONE: Skirting The Edge

Crystal day --
blue wind whispering
scent of snow,
warmth of ice,
calling, calling my name.

From the top,
the world was held
in terrible silence,
the beating rush
of blood in my limbs
the one constant --
and the bitter blueness
of winter sky
free of storms,
free to hwol
in frigid welcome.

Crystal day --
blue and white and
so very, very high;
such moments we danced,
such arabesques
the white blueness
promised with it's
frozen kiss.

[][][][][]

TWO: Losing Balance

Soft.
Smooth and soft
and terribly wrong;
eternity held in my hand,
a fractured second split.
Suspended on the moment,
on the sloping razor-edge,
the high-wire snapped
beneath my feet and
Earth mated blindly with Sky.

     And the stone sank
     slowly to the bottom
     of the frozen well
     and tubled quicker
     than gravity would perceive
     and plummeted from
     the edge of the world,
     drifting slowly
     (so unbearably fast)
     into the Abyss...
     into the maw of the Dragon...
     and was swallowed whole.

Soft.
Too soft and smooth.
For an eternity
a scream echoed denial--
then was silenced
by the sudden spin.

[][][][][]

THREE: Falling

Carnage
in mind
melts from
ice to skin
to churning blueness --
sulfur the only scent,
copper and rust
cloy to bitten lips.
Death in a whirlwind
of silence;
only the heat
of lost breath
crashed from brutalized lungs,
only the swallowed
scream of fear
tumbling like
a lost galaxy
in paralyzed throat.
Carnage
from quiet --
a broken morning
claws bits of
the whole onto sheets
of pure white.
What was whole is sundered;
the one who lived is lost.