My parents told me that I was near death from spinal meningitis at 18 months. Nearly died from it. Pulled through somehow.
Near death crap.
I fell through the ice of a pond far from where anyone could have seen me or helped me. I have no idea how I got out.
Near death crap.
Drunk, I jumped off a cliff into darkness assuming but not knowing if there was water below and
Not knowing how to swim,
I landed in water with rocks and old machinery around me
Climbed a cliff sobering fast….
Near death crap.
Tried to kill myself with poison at age 19. A gas of some sort that sent me up a tunnel of light looking down on my body then back with a WHOOSH!
Near death crap.
Had a blood clot in my my leg had an ultra sound and found another about to fall into a big vein and head for the lungs…
Near death crap.
Other things happened I
Things my mind does not want to process again,
That coulda died
Almost died
Near death crap
Every day I live in gratitude of being alive
Every day I accept I been living on borrowed time because of those
Coulda died
Maybe shoulda died’s
Near death craps
Some day that wind is going to whisper too near
And in passing
Reach for me
Bump me harder than all the other times
Kill me with that disease
Keep me under ice
Clot me gasping good
Make me continue on up that bright light tunnel…
So much for near death then…
no more
No more…
I learned to embrace life
Savor so many amazing mundane moments
Moments that ARE BEING ALIVE
HERE SO REAL
And not near any death of mine.
Too many feel that puff of wind that nearly sends them over
Then into that bright tunnel
Coming back
They never learned
Not a damn thing
Never changed
Never got BETTER
From the teachers of the near deaths
Those great lessons of a gasp in wonder…
It changed me every time
Shocked into seeing everything
Everyone different
With more beauty
More…. FEELING
An intensity of gaining more life by …
Going to near the near death craps.
How did I ever get this wonderfully far…
What a lesson it all is
Life is so precious after a brush with that dark wind
Into
Then out of
That tunnel of light.