Brain Injury Poetry on Surviving

Poems on Coma and Survival after Traumatic Brain Injury

by Angela Machovec

 “Time is the best censor, and patience a most excellent teacher. Simplicity is the highest goal, achievable when you have overcome all difficulties.” ~~F. Chopin

Hi, my name is Angela Marie Cecilia Machovec, or just Angie, which is what most people call me… except for my father and my doctor.

I sustained a traumatic brain injury on May 30, 2000… it was actually my last day of high school. I was 17 at the time, and I was struck by a car when I crossed the street to go back home. I can’t stress enough how it was like any other day, the same time I went jogging, and the same path I took.

But my world completely changed at that moment, and so did everyone in it.
I was in a coma for about a month and spent 3 weeks in rehab. I left the hospital on July 17, 2000. Then I spent until Christmas in outpatient rehab.

I wrote these poems in the summer of 2002 over a creative writing course I took… and these just came out. It truly helped in my rehabilitation and acceptance of what had happened.

I began going to UNC Chapel Hill in the summer of 2001. Adjusting to life is still hard at times, but with each month it’s getting better and better. The thing about brain injuries is that nobody can really predict what will happen and how long it will take. Most people thought I was going to die, including the medic at the scene; if not die, then have serious cognitive problems. Yet, here I am today, with none of the significant problems people said I would have.

If you have faith and believe the way my parents do, along with excellent care, I think anything is possible.

I hope my writing helps people to deal with their problems, or that it can express others’ own feelings, not only mine. People who have suffered TBI or have family members who suffered TBI need to form a community to support each other. Good luck in everything that comes your way, and never forget to have faith!

 While I Was Sleeping  

vomit projecting everywhere
brain pressures are too high
blood transfusions
lung punctured
tibia fractured twice
right arm dead
no left kidney
eyes bruised,
bulging,
discolored…
left side laceration
split spleen
blood clot
morphine

beep
beep
beep
beep

erase her memory of all this

Thanks for trying,
but it didn’t work.

she might need a vena cava filter
she might need a tracheostomy
she might not remember anyone,
or anything at all.
she might be paralyzed
she might be retarded
she might not wake up
she might die

No, I won’t.

I’m going to win this, you’ll see.

  And I’ll be fine.
After 

 As she lays here, she admits to herself-
she doesn’t understand a lot of things in life.
She doesn’t understand why she had to leave others behind,
why she had to live to see what she could have become, yet was privileged enough to skip away from the pain.

She’s not afraid to make these mistakes,
She’s not afraid to be wrong.
She’s not afraid of dying (and knows he’ll be there).

So what exactly is she afraid of?
I’m not even sure of that part.
Maybe she’s afraid of dreams that don’t make sense,
or letting herself believe stories that fit between the crisp pages of a book.
Maybe she’s afraid of letting them know what she wants,
or not wanting anything at all.
Maybe she is afraid of letting go of these dreams,
miracles she spent countless nights imagining,
winding and rewinding them.

She’s afraid of people crying.
She’s afraid to be normal.
She’s afraid of falling into someone’s permanent outline,
never escaping the known.
She’s afraid of stumbling into someone’s footsteps and never making her own.

Was she ever really here?

I don’t want to be a silhouette.

There are many nights I sit here,
wondering how I ever made it to this place.
But I don’t cry,
no.

I can’t cry.

 Net Bed 

Wow-
look at all these people here.
I’m not like them at all.

I’m no different than before, I don’t have any problems.
I’m not like them.
I mean, just look at these people- I can’t believe they think I need to be here.
The man next door is missing one leg, others are missing eyes,
then there’s the one kid who doesn’t even talk to anybody.
And also that guy…
he’s retarded I think,
and I don’t know for sure, but,

he scares me sometimes.

That woman over there,
I bet all the machines she’s hooked up to weigh more than she does.
OK, so what, I’m in a wheelchair like everybody else.
And yeah,
sometimes my words don’t make any sense.
I’m only missing a little hair, and I have this stupid tube attached to me.
Hey, at least I still have my leg, and it will work again.

As soon as I get outta here I will run forever.

Oh my God

I just have to get out of this place.

(net bed – a tool used by hospitals to ensure the safety of a patient in case the patient would attempt to get out of bed unattended)

  The Other Side 

Brian was speeding.
He hit me.
He panicked,
and thought I was gone.

John was keeping me alive.
He said, “It’s a shame,”
and thought I would be gone soon enough.

Most people, actually, thought the same thing.
But, I was not allowed to make my big exit,
not just yet.

It is forever changing my life.
I can’t look at people the way I used to,
I see them now through older eyes of experience.
I can’t feel things the way I used to,
life gives me such a bittersweet taste.
I can’t hear things the way I used to,
now that I have heard the echo of a higher realm –
it has a much stronger pull than anything on this Earth.

It is forever changing my life.

Well, nobody knows why it happened,
and they can’t understand what I’ve discovered –
how amazing it is to know I am alive.
And how wonderful it is that I can see the sun rise and set,
knowing I can watch it all again tomorrow.
They don’t understand what I have seen beyond.

I wish people could feel it,
I wish they could understand,
they don’t.

But the reason, I guess,
is pretty simple.

They’ve never experienced the warmth on the other side.

 Butcher Holler  

To ever wish that I hadn’t returned
is a horrible wish that I know too well.
A lesson to value life (that is rarely learned)
was brought to light when this angel fell.
Fights with best friends brought me bitter dead-ends,
so I wondered why I struggled for life.
On no one at all could I rely or depend,
and I questioned God, could this really be right?
But then I spent some time in Van Lear,
and I learned the reasons why I came back.
The people there have a piece of me forever,
they gave me reasons to cry and reasons to laugh.
To know they’re why I passed the biggest test,
the answers uncovered make me know I am blessed.

  Drifting  

I had a dream last night that Mom took me to the store;
it was always the same, and never changing.

I don’t understand what they expected of me:
to always stay the same, never changing.

So many nights I spent alone, on my own;
time had no meaning because nothing was changing.

I couldn’t wait to leave and be alone,
not hearing comments on “how she’s changing.”

My “friends” don’t know me as well as they thought, Angela’s life is built around changing.

 Responsibility 

May 30th around 5:30 p.m.
I braked as soon as I could.
Glass shattered like
a spilled box of needles.
She took my mirror with her.
When I looked at her
she was lying
in the gutter,
smashed and split.
I sat
in the grass,
tail tucked between my legs.

The police traced her
using bright pink chalk,
screeching against resistant concrete.

*Note from the author…
I wrote this from the point of view of the young driver. It put a different spin on my view of what happened and it put me into his mind, which gives everything involved a completely different meaning.

  Between Preludes and Nocturnes 

When I come home I see the new lines on your face,
and more streaks of silver in your hair than before;
I know I caused them.
When I hear you talking to mom, the neighbors,
or just to yourself,
I notice that your voice has gone from lion to lamb.
I have no idea
what happened between preludes and nocturnes.
You could say that I am a clear glass of water and
on the edge,
or that I’m simply a mirror to your mistakes.
But I do know,
whatever happened between preludes and nocturnes,
became our cornerstone that was never in place.

*Note from the author…
This poem is about the relationship with my father after my hospitalization and first year of college. It’s about the change in our relationship and the change I saw in him.