“What hurts the most?” is such a difficult question.
Look at the bruises, there’s too many to mention.
I tasted salt and fear when I opened my mouth,
I cried so many tears that I couldn’t begin to count.

The hot tears trickled down mixing with the blood on my cheek.
The neck brace was too tight, and I could not speak.
I could not scream and I could not understand,
where were the ambulances and who was this man?
This man who held my hand and said I was ‘doing good’
I never saw him again but for a moment, he was my entire world.
Did he think I would die? Well, his eyes told me the truth.
And as he cried alongside me, he told me not to move.

The saws were so loud, and the heat was so much
that my conscience floated away from me, mixing with dust
Dust from the glass that blew into my mouth
and I coughed up my lungs but the dust wouldn’t come out.
Loaded onto the stretcher by strangers,
whose faces I swore I would never forget but I have,
Swirled all together into the face of my dad.
But where is he now? In heaven or hell?
I tried to ask God but He’ll never tell.

June twenty first is the date that I will never forget,
And the scars deep inside never will mend.
I pray every night that my soul shall He keep
And sometimes at night I’m too scared to go to sleep.

I never understood the simple gift of walking,
Until it was taken away and I was left wanting.
Wanting to stop counting the tiles over my head
As I lay broken and helpless in my hospital bed.
Wanting to stop the thoughts of seeing my fate unwind,
And remembering silently what I would have left behind.