ten-second headstart
i run in my dreams.
when i wake up, i have ten blissful seconds. then, on the eleventh, my memory catches up to me, and i am painfully reminded of what i can no longer do. i outrun reality. i am shattered each time.
i once overheard that we shouldn’t call motor vehicle accidents accidents because some error must have been made for the event to occur.
distracted driving. failure to yield on left.
the glitter of glass on my clothing and a cracked windshield.
fractured bones. blood and stitches.
a metal plate and six or seven screws.
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a lifetime of rehabilitation.
i loved running as a kid. i was the first to get picked for field day events, and at swim practice, i sprinted my laps around the building at full speed, every time. my parents called me speedy gonzalez. they said i was a horse. i loved running more than swimming. my coach asked me if i considered the track team.
i always look both ways before i cross. i learned that as a kid, too. i saw the pedestrian signal. it was one pm. it was daylight.
when i wake up, i am me again.
eleven seconds later, i am the girl who was hit by a car in a pedestrian crossing. whose knee was fractured, among other bones. whose quad is still atrophied two years later. whose joint can’t tolerate enough force to propel her forward. who’s 24 and losing hope that she’ll ever be able to run, or hop, or skip, again.
when i wake up, i forget.
when those memories catch up to me (the asphalt, the ambulance, the hospital, the wheelchair, the crutches, the, the, the), i am slammed by your heavy force over and over and over. you hit me with your car again in those quiet mornings when my eyes are barely opened. your violence repeated.
i run in my dreams.
only in my dreams.
