An alcoholic changed my life one night.
The sun won’t rise. My head is in a whirlwind but I can’t feel a thing. Nothing surrounds me yet breath lingers.
Riding along quiet in the whispering wind and happy for my friends. No cares but to share in their victory.
My friends have graduated and they’re moving on. Changing worlds for all of us. Different paths keyed to different songs.
Not looking for a handout.
Not wanting pity or a tear.
Doing things the way I see fit.
The road ahead not easy or clear.
Up ahead the road is nearly empty. My engine grumbles running fine. The purr taking me to the party, my helmet secure, down the yellow lines.
Don’t see him coming. Swerving in a daze. Across the lines, he turns his truck without a signal in a blaze.
No time to react. Drunken truck cuts my path. Gripping my brakes to stop his mistake his metal door halts my bike. Crossing my handlebars my head indents his truck with a vicious strike.
Smashed and crashed we wait. Paramedics fast to the scene. For a moment I pass the threshold but the EMTs are not too late.
In the gurney and to hospital beds. A coma takes my blasted head. Seventeen days are gone to another plane. Can’t feel a thing, can’t complain.
He’s too drunk to remember much. Judge slaps his hand, he still drives to work and such. Caught drunk again, another DUI but he’s somehow allowed to drive.
Nearly two months in the hospital and 3 in recovery. Years of new discovering me. Lost my life to a drunk and how the years piled up before my brain had rid of the impact and the funk.
Injustice suffered and head injury gained. Damaged goods, a damaged brain. So, I have no sympathy for drunk drivers and excuses or shifting blame. Judges in black robes are not always right but I will never give up the fight.
I was a victim but no more. Brains do keep growing. I know this for sure.
Please never drive high or drunk.
