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Just ten minutes after I'd revved the engine
I was only nine miles away from the love of my life
Day dreaming of when we’d met just eight short months ago
Soaring at seventy down that country road
Only six more miles until she’d be in my arms again
Five years ago thoughts of love would have seemed so far out of sight
Yet four times I've already proposed, “too soon,” she’d always say
Amazing how in three seconds your entire life can change
With just two tires there’s little room for error
When one blew out I hit the asphalt, hard
In a wreck like that there’s zero chance I’d survive
One hour later the ambulance arrived at last
EMTs pressed two paddles against my chest
Shocks were delivered three times
At the hospital doctors performed four operations
Five months I spent in a coma
Followed by six months of physical therapy relearning to walk
In time all seventeen broken bones had set and healed
It cost me eight grand to buy a new bike
Now nine years later I’m still riding, fearless, wife on the back
The tenth time I asked, she finally said yes
 Sep 2012 Rebecca McDade
mask
I am pressed between
the weight of your breath
and the sighs in my spine.

I am gripping a hand
that feels more like my own
than another's.

I am staring behind closed eyelids.
I am panting inside collapsed lungs.

Never before have I spread myself
so thinly
across foreign sheets.

Never before have I been so full;
never before have I been so thin.
Sitting around, no work today
Try pacing to keep awake
Laying around, no school today
Just drink until the clock has circled all the way
It is late afternoon
as you walk through the rooms
of a house that is quiet
except for unanswered telephones
You stand near the sink
while you're mixing a drink
You think you don't want to pass out
where your roommates will find you again
Stumble around the neighborhood with nothing to do
You're always looking for something
to sniff, to smoke, or swallow
Calling over next door to see what they got
but you would settle for anything
that would make your brain slow down or stop
Break this circle of thoughts you chase
before they catch up back with you
and your parents noticed your thinning face
all the weight you lost
You said, "I'm done feeling like a skeleton,
no more sleep walking dead."
You're going to wake from this coma
You're going to crawl from this bed you have made
and stop counting on that camera
that hangs around your neck
because it won't ever remember
what you choose to forget
as you try to find some source of light
Try to name one thing you like
You used to have such a longer list
and light you never had to look for it
But now it's so easy to second guess everything you do
until all you want is to finish this half-empty glass
before the ice melts away
The feeling always used to pass
but seems like it's everyday
Seems like it's every night now
 Mar 2012 Rebecca McDade
mask
I am a fixture.

I am a body
whose frigid fingers
feel the nape of your neck.

I am a picture
that is only seen
(and never heard),
that makes the space prettier
with my paralyzed presence.

I am a pair of eyes that reflect light,
I am a pair of ears that hold your voice,
I am a nose that pulls your sweet scent from the air
and in doing so,
I make you real.

But I am not.
I am,
simply,
a fixture.
1.
When she kissed him
he lit up like a firework
shot into the sky
and exploded in jubilant splendor

She was not entirely pleased,
as he now rained down upon her.

2.
When he smiled at her
she felt as if the warmth
of a thousand suns were
inside of her chest.

Luckily there was
a fire extinguisher
nearby



Choose your metaphors
with care
I don't feel like making sense right now.
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