Poem: Awake and Paralyzed
March 20, 2009 by John Hewitt
Awake and Paralyzed
Her brain awoke in advance of her body
I don’t know how long she was awake
Before she could open he eyes
But that was the extent of it
For quite a wile
That and a small curl of the toes
A nervous twitch for the feet
She was trapped
Awake in her unmoving body
She stared at me and I
Stared back
Smiled as much as I could
And held her hand
I sat with my head on the bed
Feeling a kind of relief
Filled with the tension of knowing
That the first steps
Of a very hard climb
Had been taken
I tried to think of things to say
Conversations to have
Without her talking
I gave the sports report
And read a little from the paper
But in the end I had
Very little to say
And felt the frustration
Of ineffectiveness
I would ask what she thought about
During those times
But I don’t want to touch that feeling
That fear
Too deeply
Whatever she felt at the time
Is probably long gone now
As the brain washes away
What it cannot handle
– J.C. Hewitt
Related links
- Poem -- The Days Before (0.500)
- Poem -- Driving Down (0.500)
- Poem -- The First Day (0.500)
- Poem -- Thanksgiving (0.500)
- Poem: Nurse Sunshine and the Drama Queen (0.500)
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You’ve found exactly the right tone for these pieces! Some things can only be told baldly, the plain facts emotional enough in themselves. Those last two lines in particular … the implications flow back over the whole poem, the whole experience, adding another dimension.