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Her Feb 2022
life has finally
gotten the better of me
life has finally
caught up with all my bad decisions
life has finally
consumed all of the light

i am confused

i am trying to
piece things together
without any memory

every feeling
I can’t figure out
why I feel this way

it is relearning
life again
hurt again
love again


i am relearning everything





i want
more than anything
to be me again
nova Jan 2019
most days i'm fine.
i can function like a normal human being.
i can finish my work in a normal amount of time.
i can operate at a normal frequency, or even at a higher one.
i can laugh and joke and keep up with conversations.
i flow easily.

some days i'm not.
i can't think through the fog that clouds my mind.
i can't keep up with the joke, or i laugh a beat too late.
i can't control my emotions and end up blowing up at someone.
i can't keep my hands from shaking and my words from stumbling over themselves.
i am ice with rough edges that crashes against itself.

i am alone
i am struggling
i am unfixable.
Living with a TBI is the hardest thing a person can go through, but the aftermath is the true test of resilience and strength.
Ellis Reyes Dec 2016
Before he was here
He would have said, "bereft of feeling,"
Now he says TBI

Before he was here,
Overwatch was a game.
Now it keeps him and others alive

Before he was here
He was a conscientious vegan.
Now he's an omnivore,
Devouring vacuum sealed inorganic meat byproducts.
With vigor

Before he was here
Musty was the damp basement smell-- endearing, familiar
Now it's the infection smell -- nauseating, familiar

Before he was here,
There was good and evil,
Now there are only shades of evil

Before he was here
She was there,
Always.
Now she is gone,
Forever.

Before he was here
Death was distant, clinical
Now it's cloying, visceral

He doesn't know if he'll be able
To return to the time before here
He doubts it.
A poem written with borrowed words: Bereft, Musty, Overwatch, Omnivore
▪●☆●▪
Swirls of verbiage
begin to settle.
My wish..
that they land
to connect a thought.
Overflowing as
grapes cascading atop
sides of vessel
butter cup yellow.
Fruit of the
darkest purple persuasion.

I have visions.
Ribbons of colour.
Movements of flutter
Wet paint on pallette,
waiting for a
canvas to present itself. 

Shambolic as to how to
put it all together.
Can almost sense
the fit,
yet unable to develop
the arrangement.
The words, 
the vision
the pigments are there,
on the tip of my mind.

I wonder if, in the event
it all came spilling out,
I would be brave
enough to reveal.
Begin to heal.
If my canvas of words and
colors could describe.

Maybe then, it would all melt
together, becoming the
black of all colors, the no color...
allowing me
to begin anew.

▪○☆○▪

Copyright © 2016. Christi Michaels.
All Rights Reserved
This poem addresses issues
while recovering from
Traumatic Brain Injury.
TBI
in 2012 i experienced an incident with a rifle. my friend spinned it around and hit me in the face. the hit was hard enough to break my nose and make me fly backwards and land on the back of my head.
after that i started having seizures. cluster seizures which mean seizures back to back. they have to be stopped by iv or i can go into status epilepticus meaning continued or back to back seizures that can **** people. there have been several times where my heart has stopped or i stopped breathing from it. its hard to live with. soooo many pills, and doctors, specialists to help diagnose me. just about a month ago i was diagnosed with tbi (traumatic brain injury) before i was diagnosed i was so upset with everything. my health my relationship, my family problems. it just piled up so i decided to numb myself with drugs and alcohol. i no longer can do that because the last time i did i woke up in the hospital with alcohol poisoning. i have right hemisphere disfunction and it effects my motor skills, speech, memory, decision making, confusion, and at this point the doctors say that my memory and confusion is dementia. sometimes i try to tell myself i don't need help, im fine, i don't need anyone, or that the doctors made a mistake. but they didn't and that was proven to me today when i saw my eeg, and mri.  i have built up white matter in my brain. and it only gets worse . i can never regain anything ive lost but i can learn how deal with it and move on from now. i can never be independent in the part of just living alone. i would like to marry the man of my dreams but i don't think i want to put him through all of this. he would have to take care of me when i get sick, and i get sick often due to my weak immune system. one hit in the face and my whole body went out of whack. we also recently discovered that i have a bundle branch block in my heart which means it is a condition in which there's a delay or obstruction along the pathway that electrical impulses travel to make your heart beat. i have a dog that can smell my auras which are mild seizures like warnings that a big one will come. but he can only do so much . squeeze under my head and bark for help.
im sorry its long i just had to let it out and finally saying it out loud really hits me. like this is my life... from now on until i die i will deal with this.

— The End —