When words hurt.

When words hurt.

Is your brain damaged? Answer me now!!

The rhythm of the heart-monitor
was the only music left in the room,
a steady, mechanical pulse
marking the seconds I was locked inside myself.

I was floating beneath dark water,
hearing your voice echo from the surface,
distorted, sharp, and cold.
You didn’t whisper prayers for my return.
You didn’t hold my limp hand for comfort.

Instead, you stood sentinel at the edge of the bed,
leaning in close to the damp pillow,
striking the same dull note,
over and over,
like a hammer hitting an iron nail:

“Is your brain damaged?”
“Is your brain damaged?”

It was not a question born of wonder.
It was a verdict.
You mapped the wires of my mind
not to heal,
but to find the fault line.
You cataloged the silence,
the stillness of my limbs,
the fog behind my closed eyes,
building a case with every heavy beat.

You knew I was listening.
That was the cruelest part—
you needed me to know
that you believed the worst of me.
You wanted to prove the fracture,
to etch the label broken
into my forehead while I was defenseless,
so that when I woke,
I would already be wearing your chains.

My thoughts were trapped like caged birds,
fluttering wildly against your relentless chant.
I am here, I screamed in the dark.
I am more than the wreck you wish to see.

The coma eventually lifted,
the fog burned away by time and will,
and I stepped back into the light.
The doctors mended what they could,
and I learned to walk and speak again.

My brain was not damaged enough to forget
the sound of a man
who stood beside a bed of suffering,
not praying for life,
but demanding proof of ruin.