- a follow up to my text "The Awakening" (2004), years on...

Certain experiences are difficult

To explain, or put words to,

Even if they are big; and impossible

To never think about once done.

This particular one is about the night

When my friend beat me to death.

For whatever reason, whatever trigger,

He completely lost his head; killed me.

Evidently, expert hands brought me back,

But for a while, I didn't exist anymore.

Those who know about this have all asked:

"What was it like?" and "Remember anything?"

The truth is I can't tell stories of bright lights,

Tunnels, or loved-ones greeting me, or

An overwhelming sensation of anything.

No claim of answers; it's only my experience.

It went more along the lines of a switching

To blackness, and then absolutely nothing.

Distant commotion, perhaps a bird's eye view

That might have lasted briefly, then gone.

My memory has stored snippets of frames,

But the emotional ride is as clear as day;

Its lasting effects come along for the long haul,

And I think that I'll never be the same again.

Some have said to me that I was lucky...

However, it's not something I ever came to feel.

For a long time, I was angry to have been rescued,

'Cause life was all and only reliving it over and over.

It took over twenty years for that to stop.

Today, the nightmare isn't felt the same way:

No more flashbacks to feel every blow and cut,

Or feel the terror, or my life seeping out of me...

Would I now change my view that I was lucky?

I don't think so, 'cause it doesn't make sense.

Am I now happy to have survived that night?

Although life is very complicated by it still, 

The intense torment's no longer my companion,

And life was able to move on to much better.

So, yes, in certain measures, I can today say

It's good to have escaped the final end.

Especially this one. 

He didn't win.