Type Dancing

Today is my youngest son’s 37th birthday. A couple of years ago he went into a coma after an old friend gave him a “kill shot” with the intent to rob him. We didn’t know if he’d survive a week, let alone recover. He has since married and moved on, still suffering from short-term memory and other symptoms of a traumatic brain injury. But he’s keeping on keeping on!
Here are poems we wrote about his bad trip.

I CAN’T SLEEP
By David Allen

I can’t sleep
while my son sleeps
this troubled sleep.
A seizure slapped his skull
with a wash of blood
that squeezed his brain
and forced the sleep
with eyes rolled up
and shaking limbs.
A tube plunged down his throat
helps him breathe,
while one in his skull
drains the invading blood.
And we caress him
and hold his hands
and give assurances
of undying love,
as he sleeps
the drug-induced sleep
from which we were told
might never end.
I can’t sleep
while my son sleeps
what well might be
the final dream
about what may
or may not come next.


I WAS ASLEEP
By Matthew Allen

I was asleep for two weeks.
Then I woke up relearning how to speak,
walking on legs that were already weak.
I asked if the hemorrhage was from the tweak.
 Yup
The tweak exploded a vein in my brain 
causing a blood clot,
killin’ parts of the gray matter
that controlled movement on my left side,
my speech, and short term memory. 
It was a little like blowin’ a head gasket
or having a water pipe burst 
and flood the basement.
I’ll tell you about it,
but, don’t ask me too much.
I don’t know why my “friends ”
gave me what the cops called
a “kill shot” to knock me out
and steal stuff from my Dad’s house.
The docs are telling me my memory 
May not ever be the same,
But I know one thing --I’m still fightin’ and will get better
While those “friends” rot in prison.

⁠
Matt and his wife Heather