back to trauma, again

There was a terrible accident.  I don’t remember it.

In the courtroom the prosecutor read

loudly,

shrilly,

clearly,

all of the accusations against me, and

all the accounts of

witnesses,

medical examiners,

police

and forensics. 

I hadn’t known one of the sisters was

pregnant

until I heard it in court,

Sitting opposite her parents, brother, and ex-husband

cameras flashing.

 I hadn’t known which of their bones broke,

or that their skulls cracked and

spilled brains onto the pavement,

or that my car ricocheted backward off of the church wall and

rolled over one of their bodies.

  Hearing all of this from a woman in a fancy suit, perfect makeup and a manicure with embedded jewels,

who seemed to be relishing every word, was, well,

I have no words for how horrifying it was.

I couldn’t bear to be in my skin

The skin of the person who has no recollection

Who never saw

But is being told, in front of all these people.

That she caused the event 

 I couldn’t stand to be in my skin,  so I left it

They told me my lawyer had to put his arm between my head and the table because I wouldn’t stop banging it.

I found myself again barricaded inside the clerk’s office with my finger on the lock button so the truth couldn’t
get
in.

Meditation on death

During this ordeal I reread some instructions for meditations written for monks.  One of the most advanced is the meditation on your own death.  In order not to fear death you must meditate on your own dead body, on how the skin will decay, on how maggots will eat your insides, eat everything until only the bones are left. 

Facing the truth

 I think that I will have to practice this meditation on death, but transposed from my death to their deaths.   I will need to confront the words of that prosecutor, the accounts of what happened in the accident that I didn’t see, the reality of how they died. 

I almost have a vision of it happening in slow motion, wondering at what point does the soul leave the body, what if our places were switched and it was my brain on the street and why didn’t it happen that way.  I don’t know yet.  I don’t know that I ever will.