random synchronicity

i have seen not my life flash before me, but my death
i have crept my toes into the muddy banks of the river styx so many times now
it astonishes me
the screams have risen in my chest
my heart has pounded, leapt to kiss my throat,
my blood flowed cold,
my brain full of the white noise of terror,
my ears sudden vacuums of sound,
my nose and mouth tasted the metallic burn of fear,
and all for naught –
each time, i survive outright and amazingly
death brushes my cheek with his bony fingers
and lets go
leaves me sobbing hysterical on the side of the road, the car crash behind me,
my belly full still of adrenaline soaked baby boy,
leaves me hyperventilating on my mother’s sofa, arm wrapped, hand numb,
the red gash searing upon my wrist,
my children rushed upstairs and the whole family staring dumbly

i have heard the distant sirens ringing, wailing the heroic call of safety,
suffered strapping to boards,
the prick of intravenous needles
morphine drips,
ultrasound and x-ray,
nausea and itching,
watching and stitching,
and the infinite waiting of hospitals,
their cold floors and invisible super-bugs,
the cruelty of nurses and semi-retarded residents, unhearing doctors,
i have cracked jokes at them, cursed at them, complained and whined and pleaded,

i have faced the cool aftermath of feeling pathetic and depressed,
anxiety ever after
the why me wonderings,
the tendons moving slowly and scarring terribly,
and the inevitable mathematics of figuring
the integration of my changed self back into my life,
that disorienting and alarming reentry into reality
wherein i remember and remember and remember
the moment -
realize it was not the stories of my life, not my loved ones,
not all the most precious happenings of my tenure on earth
that flared like lightening in my brain at the instant of impact,
but rather a version of my expiration,
the secret glimpse of what it feels like to end,
and now knowing, i walk around a marked woman,
scarred permanently, irrevocably with the empty wisdom of the touch of nothingness.