Stability is restored. The alignment of the bite is still off by a few millimeters. Soft foods are doable. I bit into a cheese-it cracker because I had to know if I could or could not. The pain was not overwhelming.
I can trot up and down stairs and shake my head this way and that without my jaw sliding loose. I think a lot of the muscle function is returning. I can swing a hammer without it shooting back up my arm and across my clavicles and up my neck into the angle of my jawbone. I think I will try to ply the basketball court again this week. Not being able to exercise with vigor or lift free weights has taken its toll. My body feels rusty and delicate. Extremely delicate. I have to be careful with it.
I still do not understand how I weighed 150 pounds through most of college, jumped up to 170 afterward, and then jumped up to stable 185 after that. I chalked it up to a late growth spurt of muscle and I do believe it to still be true. Nothing really changed beyond stints in the weight room and more aggressive behaviors in terms of physical conflict resolution.
I've taken on water and fat since the injury. The muscle tissues are still there, waiting to be awakened and pushed and pulled apart. Sometimes, the ideal of 220 looms. Two hundred and twenty pounds of "thank you kindly" laid over five feet, ten inches, and change of bones and arteries. The ideal power to weight ratio where nothing is impossible and armor is thick and well. Ringing in at 189 and having trouble pumping a bicycle tire is not healthy at all. I think that is the highest cost of dealing with this injury. Knowing you have been set backward by months, chunks of years of hard work, sweat, tears, and shouts of victory and the best you can do is wait and watch it happen and think about all of the time you are losing and all of the training you cannot do.
I cannot help it. I want to fight. My pop was a fighter. It is in my blood. I love it. I love the challenge. I love going knuckle to knuckle. I love putting wear and tear on my frame and I cannot do it again or try to while the soft tissues finish knitting. It is supremely aggravating. That part of me continues screaming: sate me! sate me! sate me! The factory continues churning out weapons that gather dust.
It's not about making someone pay for my misfortune. It's not about spreading pain. It's about the test. It's about hand and eye coordination. It's about enjoying tumbling and rabble rousing and rises and falls. It's about split second decisions. The joy and exhilaration of making the right call in the fraction of the second and then following it up with another one in the split of the next second and knowing, had you been blind, your body knew what to do before your brain did.
I feel sometimes that every persons body has two brains. A machine brain and a quantum one.
Clean with alcohol only. Do not attempt to replace blown fuses. Do not remove access panels. Return to certified mechanic for regular maintenance. Made in the USA.
9/26/15
9/25/15
Dear (_____)
Dear writing,
I know I should be spending more time with you. I know it. I know it!
Is it alright that I have to take a break. Is it alright that I feel close to stable and I do not want to deconstruct or explore? Is it alright that I want to view it and enjoy the contours of a planet?
Sometimes what I experience with you is not a block or a dearth of words to say. What I experience is a moment, several increments long, of taking you in. Taking all of you in. Sexually. Biologically. Isness. Contextual. History. Timeways. Can I take you in and breathe and enjoy you?
You are my mate. Every minute and second cannot be sex. Every instant cannot be adventure.
Yes, I did use you to keep me sane and help me mark time, but will you mind if I use time to help me become more intimate with you?
///Prometheus- "Collision"
I know I should be spending more time with you. I know it. I know it!
Is it alright that I have to take a break. Is it alright that I feel close to stable and I do not want to deconstruct or explore? Is it alright that I want to view it and enjoy the contours of a planet?
Sometimes what I experience with you is not a block or a dearth of words to say. What I experience is a moment, several increments long, of taking you in. Taking all of you in. Sexually. Biologically. Isness. Contextual. History. Timeways. Can I take you in and breathe and enjoy you?
You are my mate. Every minute and second cannot be sex. Every instant cannot be adventure.
Yes, I did use you to keep me sane and help me mark time, but will you mind if I use time to help me become more intimate with you?
///Prometheus- "Collision"
9/21/15
9/20/15
Nearing the End of the Third Week With a Fractured Jaw
With roughly 75% of the range of motion returning and constant pain beginning to subside for several hours at a time I feel pretty good about not going to a hospital on this one. Had there been a clear break in the bone I definitely would have gone to get whatever metal was needed implanted and get wired shut. Sometimes it baffles me how interconnected the bodies musculoskeletal system is and I am constantly reminded of how layered its concert is.
I didn't realize how many different ways and how often I shift my jaw and slide my teeth against each other when I am processing information or thinking through conversation or using my eyes and ears to take information in. Left, right, backwards, forwards, clenching some sections of teeth and relaxing others at the same time. Everything from pulling on a door knob, to swinging a hammer, to stretching, sitting down, standing up, turning my head, opening a mailbox, to driving a stick shift is tied to the muscle groups around the neck and jaw. Suddenly hundreds if not thousands of long memorized motions and activities that you could perform with blindfolded confidence are thrown into doubt. "Is this going to hurt?" "How will this affect the healing cracks?" "Will this pull apart soft scar tissues not yet stabilized and calcified into bone?" In the third week I am starting to regain some confidence.
For most of the first and second week the pain never felt less than a five or six on a 10 point scale throughout the day from waking to sleep. Depression became a huge factor. You are not sad because of what happened or how it happened. You become depressed because you cannot laugh without shooting pain. You become depressed because you cannot fall asleep because of sudden spikes of pain that cut through your over the counter pain killers like the barrel of a bat slamming into a light bulb tucked inside a pillow case. You become depressed because the muscles of your tongue and throat put enough pressure on the angle of your jaw, right on the side of the cracks, to make your eyes tear up when you swallow what you can. Everything you casually associated with happiness in sleep, smiling, laughter, rest, sustenance, is hot wired and reprogrammed to fear and ache and apprehension and anger and it weighs on you hour after hour after hour until depression becomes crushing.
In week three many self imposed restrictions are beginning to lift. I can get through the day and night without a single pain pill. The constant background ache has dropped to an occasionally noticeable two or three. When I press on the impact site gently, the bone doesn't flex and make crunching sounds. In the second week I successfully set the condyle back into its natural position. I couldn't help crying for several minutes afterward. It was important and necessary as my bite was out of alignment from front to back. Once I did that the grinding noise right at the ramus's tip finally stopped and when I bandaged my mouth closed with a thick elastic wrap my teeth sat almost as evenly as they did before. I think that dislocation is probably what saved the angle from snapping clean through.
I can almost yawn again. I still have to brace my chin when I sneeze. At the end of this third week I can chew very soft pasta and cheese and drink thick soup relatively pain free, but I am taking it extremely carefully to be absolutely certain I don't retard the healing process or get too enthusiastic about my food choices. It felt so good to finally be able to scrub my beard again without fireballs of pain shooting through my face. Nothing changes the complexion of the day like starting it off with a good deep beard scrubbing, good god I missed that.
All of my anger and hatred toward the people that did this to me is gone. What really makes me happy is not caring what happens to them. Being able to let their aggression go and not have a second thought about retaliation or feeling like I'm owed something or that I owe them something. The transaction is over. What matters is what you decide to do next for yourself. What matters is that lying in bed your jaw doesn't sag and fall to one side like a screen door with one hinge. What matters is that you survived and you can physically laugh again without fear of splitting bone apart from the spirited ways in which you normally like to jump on life's comedy.
I still cannot laugh too much or the pain piles up and grows to wince worthy proportions and twists my face sour. I still can't make some facial expressions. I still can't sustain hours of conversation, but then again I was never particularly great at making conversation as much as listening to it, but it is still something to get used to realizing that I can only say so many words before I have to rest and close my mouth tightly. I still can't clench my teeth in consternation. I can feel some lingering instability and pain in the healing dislocated joint when I run up or down stairs or shake or nod my head too vigorously. Hopefully these things and instabilities will pass as week four progresses.
I know there is potential for some level of permanent pain in the joint since it was not reset by a professional and was not wired shut to ensure speedy and complete recovery of the fracture site. There were evenings when I slept and would wake with a start in the second week so abrupt I could feel the joint strain and hear the angle click and flex. There was a day when I woke to a spider landing on my cheek and a slapped at my face and new before the pain even registered that I screwed up big time in doing so and set myself back all of whatever healing occurred through that day. Common sense tells me this too, as my back injury from two and a half years ago still bothers me from time to time and sends numb sensations down my right buttock and thigh if the barometric pressure is too far off from my body.
Some of the nerves likely died as well as there is noticeably diminished feeling along the left side of my jaw bone. I expected as much. I expected the worst, but progress has been good and some levity has returned to day to day life. I am not out of the woods yet. Two to three more weeks to go before I'll try to bite into a piece of meat that hasn't been blended to the consistency of mashed potatoes. At least three more weeks before I try to bite into an apple. I think I may attempt a sandwich next Saturday... a grilled cheese or peanut butter and jelly. My tummy can't wait to have fun with food with my mouth.
The food has been spectacular. At first, the only things I could eat were nutrient shakes and very thin liquids for the first two weeks. Very finely blended and extremely water heavy meals put through the blender and then only a half cup or so every few hours because the pain was too intense to do much more than that. Since then the horizons have begun to grow and meals become more intricate. Right now it's an assortment of pastes and soups of varying composition, from fresh bell peppers ground into bacon pate with rice and spinach soups drizzled all around to sweet bean mashed potatoes with soft sharp chedder shredded over the top alongside peas carrot beef mash and oreos in a little cup on the side blended into a desert syrup. Nothing makes lunch quite like peanut butter and jelly paste beside a cup of milk. It has been a little bit of a challenge and through the first two weeks I lost 25 pounds, but as time is getting on, some of the weight has come back.
I still feel weak from not being able to work out or move much, but some strength has returned and will only increase as the healing progresses. At the end of week 3, I feel alright about the future. There's a decent chance I will be close to what I was before my jaw was fractured and dislocated. I know I will never be the same, but I am alive and can continue and I am happy for that. Happy with that. It kind of mirrors my mental problems that I deal with and constantly manage without medicine. I know I will never be better than I was, but I can try to make sure I don't completely unravel and if I can be close to as sound as I was the day before then I have done the best I can.
///Deptford Goth - "Objects Objects" the bass filled silence between the searing walls of the chaotic
I didn't realize how many different ways and how often I shift my jaw and slide my teeth against each other when I am processing information or thinking through conversation or using my eyes and ears to take information in. Left, right, backwards, forwards, clenching some sections of teeth and relaxing others at the same time. Everything from pulling on a door knob, to swinging a hammer, to stretching, sitting down, standing up, turning my head, opening a mailbox, to driving a stick shift is tied to the muscle groups around the neck and jaw. Suddenly hundreds if not thousands of long memorized motions and activities that you could perform with blindfolded confidence are thrown into doubt. "Is this going to hurt?" "How will this affect the healing cracks?" "Will this pull apart soft scar tissues not yet stabilized and calcified into bone?" In the third week I am starting to regain some confidence.
For most of the first and second week the pain never felt less than a five or six on a 10 point scale throughout the day from waking to sleep. Depression became a huge factor. You are not sad because of what happened or how it happened. You become depressed because you cannot laugh without shooting pain. You become depressed because you cannot fall asleep because of sudden spikes of pain that cut through your over the counter pain killers like the barrel of a bat slamming into a light bulb tucked inside a pillow case. You become depressed because the muscles of your tongue and throat put enough pressure on the angle of your jaw, right on the side of the cracks, to make your eyes tear up when you swallow what you can. Everything you casually associated with happiness in sleep, smiling, laughter, rest, sustenance, is hot wired and reprogrammed to fear and ache and apprehension and anger and it weighs on you hour after hour after hour until depression becomes crushing.
In week three many self imposed restrictions are beginning to lift. I can get through the day and night without a single pain pill. The constant background ache has dropped to an occasionally noticeable two or three. When I press on the impact site gently, the bone doesn't flex and make crunching sounds. In the second week I successfully set the condyle back into its natural position. I couldn't help crying for several minutes afterward. It was important and necessary as my bite was out of alignment from front to back. Once I did that the grinding noise right at the ramus's tip finally stopped and when I bandaged my mouth closed with a thick elastic wrap my teeth sat almost as evenly as they did before. I think that dislocation is probably what saved the angle from snapping clean through.
I can almost yawn again. I still have to brace my chin when I sneeze. At the end of this third week I can chew very soft pasta and cheese and drink thick soup relatively pain free, but I am taking it extremely carefully to be absolutely certain I don't retard the healing process or get too enthusiastic about my food choices. It felt so good to finally be able to scrub my beard again without fireballs of pain shooting through my face. Nothing changes the complexion of the day like starting it off with a good deep beard scrubbing, good god I missed that.
All of my anger and hatred toward the people that did this to me is gone. What really makes me happy is not caring what happens to them. Being able to let their aggression go and not have a second thought about retaliation or feeling like I'm owed something or that I owe them something. The transaction is over. What matters is what you decide to do next for yourself. What matters is that lying in bed your jaw doesn't sag and fall to one side like a screen door with one hinge. What matters is that you survived and you can physically laugh again without fear of splitting bone apart from the spirited ways in which you normally like to jump on life's comedy.
I still cannot laugh too much or the pain piles up and grows to wince worthy proportions and twists my face sour. I still can't make some facial expressions. I still can't sustain hours of conversation, but then again I was never particularly great at making conversation as much as listening to it, but it is still something to get used to realizing that I can only say so many words before I have to rest and close my mouth tightly. I still can't clench my teeth in consternation. I can feel some lingering instability and pain in the healing dislocated joint when I run up or down stairs or shake or nod my head too vigorously. Hopefully these things and instabilities will pass as week four progresses.
I know there is potential for some level of permanent pain in the joint since it was not reset by a professional and was not wired shut to ensure speedy and complete recovery of the fracture site. There were evenings when I slept and would wake with a start in the second week so abrupt I could feel the joint strain and hear the angle click and flex. There was a day when I woke to a spider landing on my cheek and a slapped at my face and new before the pain even registered that I screwed up big time in doing so and set myself back all of whatever healing occurred through that day. Common sense tells me this too, as my back injury from two and a half years ago still bothers me from time to time and sends numb sensations down my right buttock and thigh if the barometric pressure is too far off from my body.
Some of the nerves likely died as well as there is noticeably diminished feeling along the left side of my jaw bone. I expected as much. I expected the worst, but progress has been good and some levity has returned to day to day life. I am not out of the woods yet. Two to three more weeks to go before I'll try to bite into a piece of meat that hasn't been blended to the consistency of mashed potatoes. At least three more weeks before I try to bite into an apple. I think I may attempt a sandwich next Saturday... a grilled cheese or peanut butter and jelly. My tummy can't wait to have fun with food with my mouth.
The food has been spectacular. At first, the only things I could eat were nutrient shakes and very thin liquids for the first two weeks. Very finely blended and extremely water heavy meals put through the blender and then only a half cup or so every few hours because the pain was too intense to do much more than that. Since then the horizons have begun to grow and meals become more intricate. Right now it's an assortment of pastes and soups of varying composition, from fresh bell peppers ground into bacon pate with rice and spinach soups drizzled all around to sweet bean mashed potatoes with soft sharp chedder shredded over the top alongside peas carrot beef mash and oreos in a little cup on the side blended into a desert syrup. Nothing makes lunch quite like peanut butter and jelly paste beside a cup of milk. It has been a little bit of a challenge and through the first two weeks I lost 25 pounds, but as time is getting on, some of the weight has come back.
I still feel weak from not being able to work out or move much, but some strength has returned and will only increase as the healing progresses. At the end of week 3, I feel alright about the future. There's a decent chance I will be close to what I was before my jaw was fractured and dislocated. I know I will never be the same, but I am alive and can continue and I am happy for that. Happy with that. It kind of mirrors my mental problems that I deal with and constantly manage without medicine. I know I will never be better than I was, but I can try to make sure I don't completely unravel and if I can be close to as sound as I was the day before then I have done the best I can.
///Deptford Goth - "Objects Objects" the bass filled silence between the searing walls of the chaotic
9/7/15
That Instant
you can't get the protective plastic off of the cap of your new bottle of off-brand Zzzquil and you pull your hand back to smash the neck on the side of your counter-top and realize nothing short of bricking your brain is going to slow you down enough to sleep fitful when you can't even control your breathing.
9/3/15
Nearing the End of the First Week With a Fractured Jaw
The fracture or break is very high up the ramus and very close to my ear. Every time I poke it hard enough I can hear and feel it flex a little so I try not to touch it or shift my jaw left or right when I do yawn with my teeth locked together. Of course I didn't go see a doctor. I have no health insurance. What's the doctor going to do? Wire my teeth together and tell me to get plenty of rest and not move my jaw. I can do that without the wires and the $5000 bill. Sure there may be other fractures along the side of the jaw bone, but inspection says they're only fractures if they do exist and not clean breaks. Thanks to wisdom teeth that were never removed growing up because they were so badly impacted the surgery was out of the question for one reason or another by the time I was screened for them, the inside of my cheek took some thick lacerations at the point of impact. I think one or two of molar roots may have cracked causing swelling and pain in the angle. Time will tell. Hell, if my wisdom teeth on that side die and eventually fall out, I'm all for it. Who am I going to be kissing in the next two- three years anyway.
The first week of a liquid diet and I'm down 17 pounds. I'm not fat, but I always feel fat, so it's helping my body image issues a great deal, oddly enough. I keep thinking over the evening last Saturday. After a great pow-wow with a buddy and his friend who had to leave a little earlier we decided to head out and grab some ice cream and, I was thinking, a pack of smokes on the side for me, happy to be alive and a little agitated, but more than anything else, happy to be out for a walk in the deep night air with a gorgeous moon. Hopping along, we came across a bunch of teens loitering in a schools front yard and a police van telling them to disperse and we walked on, exchanging glances. They were obviously doing it wrong. Mulling in the shadows instead of out beneath the street lights on your way to get some tasty ice cream and smokes and then hop back home to finish the night off with a few beers and your friend.
They were doing it wrong and it was funny and in my happiness and joy with the night and my pal and the prospect of ice cream, I shouted to them so, with a few more curse words and some gestures, but simply poking fun at how they choose to spend their time when they could be walking to get ice cream instead of haunting a schools front lawn. They shouted back and I shouted back, because there's so much more to life than trying to intimidate people all of the time. There's friendship, and the moon, and ice cream, and cigarettes, and the fun a Saturday unperturbed by anyone who dares believe they can rain on my happy day with a friend I haven't seen in far too long. Who cares if a couple of happy travelers don't clutch their purses or speak in hushed voices as they pass you by. You're a bunch of kids on a schools closed front lawn trying to intimidate and strike fear into the "mean streets of Pittsburgh" from the shadows. Ooga booga! It was hilarious.
Those boys took it the wrong way and decided to follow and encircle us. "All of this happiness must be stomped out!" is what I think they said collectively. I had no desire to fight. Those roads are way behind me and ice cream was ahead of me and the police were just up the block a moment ago. I do not live in a world where I will trade ice cream for police questioning. Ever! I figured there'd be some yelling and shoving and they'd go on their merry and moody and belligerent way after pushing us around and we'd continue on ours and get those evening treats and continue our happy Saturday. It wasn't to be. I was hit from a blind angle right in the left corner of my jawbone just beneath my ear and dropped like a bag of rocks for a few seconds. My friend, struck too, was lucky enough to get hit from a direction his head was more or less facing and did not suffer more than cosmetic damage in a black eye and a cut or two.
I didn't realize the discomfort I felt the following day was far more than a bruise on my cheek until the day after when the pain got worse and worse until I couldn't chew anything, much less open my mouth. I guess those boys won. My happiness silenced by a fractured jaw bone and quite possibly broken molars inside the bone itself (hoping that's not the case, but we'll know in another week or two or if the violence of them being forcefully shifted a few millimeters out of their homes has caused inflammation that will take some time to heal [or if infection is underway as we write *cue doom music*]).
I keep thinking through that fateful stretch of night. I keep asking myself why the hell would they do that? Keep telling myself it was entirely uncalled for. I know why I was sucker punched. Their fear. That moment when my friend was hit and they thought "now or never because if this other larger guy wasn't going to put up a fight before he just may A: decide to put up a fight now, B: shout or call for help, C: both a and b." I keep wondering why they didn't just yell back and go their separate way. There was no chance they considered he and I, a couple of drunk 30 year old men out on a walk together, to be a threat to them. Why would they do that? Why would they attack us so viciously?
And then it dawned on me. Thinking back 12 years. How righteously furious I was then for dozens of reasons, some complex some as simple as I wanted an excuse to pass on the hurt inside of me to anyone who gave me an excuse to. Ready to fight anyone and any inanimate object that didn't "respect" me no matter how pointless or stupid. I didn't want to rob you. I wanted to hurt you as badly as I could get away with. Year after year after year, getting more angry, more sensitive, more irrational, but always questioning it, breaking it apart, tearing down the engine, trying to figure out what the hell it was making this bomb of my body go tick tick tick. I still haven't figured it out exactly.
Through years of study, years of violence toward others sometimes warranted, often times not, culminating in things I will never be able to take back, I left those courses behind me. Thirty years old all I care about is writing, getting home in one piece, spending time with my cats, seeing my friends when I can, and taking care of the only body I have left until my brain breaks apart or my body just will not run anymore. I could care less who respects me and who doesn't. I could care less who breaks my jaw and who decides to be merciful. Save for a handful of very specific, very important, exceptions, if I ever get so mad that the only language I can speak is the original dialect, violence itself, I will speak through breaking my own skin and nerves, not someone else's. The simpler truth is that for most of those kids, they will never learn or even begin to learn how to learn that things could be different. Some of them will end up dead. Others will circle their private drains until their live's dwindle and die out.
Those idiots aren't there yet. It was stupid of me to believe a 12 year gap in understanding what a good night with a friend really is, and what it can mean in the face of a world, in the face of my world once dominated by violence. They didn't silence my happiness. If worst comes to worst and I can never quite use my jaw the way I could before that night again, I have always wanted to learn sign language.
Do I hate them for it? Of course. Would I like to find one of them, knock him senseless, wrap him duct tape and put him in the bed of my truck and take him home? Would I like to duct tape his arm to a sheet of plywood after gagging him with #0 steel wool and use my belt sander grind away the first knuckle of each digit of his immobilized hand and then shatter the wrist of his other? Would I like to drive down river and dump his body at a drainage gate? Of course. That would achieve nothing. I'd be happy for a while until the next week when the pain set in again and I would need to find another one and that life is not for me as long as I continue to refuse it and allow the rest of myself to flourish. Maybe they'll learn. Maybe a few of them will think about and ask themselves essential questions.
Happiness and love are precious and not to be squandered under all but the most extreme circumstances. Especially not in this world's economy.
///=sigh= I could really go for a slice of pizza right about now. I'll melt some ice cream instead.
The first week of a liquid diet and I'm down 17 pounds. I'm not fat, but I always feel fat, so it's helping my body image issues a great deal, oddly enough. I keep thinking over the evening last Saturday. After a great pow-wow with a buddy and his friend who had to leave a little earlier we decided to head out and grab some ice cream and, I was thinking, a pack of smokes on the side for me, happy to be alive and a little agitated, but more than anything else, happy to be out for a walk in the deep night air with a gorgeous moon. Hopping along, we came across a bunch of teens loitering in a schools front yard and a police van telling them to disperse and we walked on, exchanging glances. They were obviously doing it wrong. Mulling in the shadows instead of out beneath the street lights on your way to get some tasty ice cream and smokes and then hop back home to finish the night off with a few beers and your friend.
They were doing it wrong and it was funny and in my happiness and joy with the night and my pal and the prospect of ice cream, I shouted to them so, with a few more curse words and some gestures, but simply poking fun at how they choose to spend their time when they could be walking to get ice cream instead of haunting a schools front lawn. They shouted back and I shouted back, because there's so much more to life than trying to intimidate people all of the time. There's friendship, and the moon, and ice cream, and cigarettes, and the fun a Saturday unperturbed by anyone who dares believe they can rain on my happy day with a friend I haven't seen in far too long. Who cares if a couple of happy travelers don't clutch their purses or speak in hushed voices as they pass you by. You're a bunch of kids on a schools closed front lawn trying to intimidate and strike fear into the "mean streets of Pittsburgh" from the shadows. Ooga booga! It was hilarious.
Those boys took it the wrong way and decided to follow and encircle us. "All of this happiness must be stomped out!" is what I think they said collectively. I had no desire to fight. Those roads are way behind me and ice cream was ahead of me and the police were just up the block a moment ago. I do not live in a world where I will trade ice cream for police questioning. Ever! I figured there'd be some yelling and shoving and they'd go on their merry and moody and belligerent way after pushing us around and we'd continue on ours and get those evening treats and continue our happy Saturday. It wasn't to be. I was hit from a blind angle right in the left corner of my jawbone just beneath my ear and dropped like a bag of rocks for a few seconds. My friend, struck too, was lucky enough to get hit from a direction his head was more or less facing and did not suffer more than cosmetic damage in a black eye and a cut or two.
I didn't realize the discomfort I felt the following day was far more than a bruise on my cheek until the day after when the pain got worse and worse until I couldn't chew anything, much less open my mouth. I guess those boys won. My happiness silenced by a fractured jaw bone and quite possibly broken molars inside the bone itself (hoping that's not the case, but we'll know in another week or two or if the violence of them being forcefully shifted a few millimeters out of their homes has caused inflammation that will take some time to heal [or if infection is underway as we write *cue doom music*]).
I keep thinking through that fateful stretch of night. I keep asking myself why the hell would they do that? Keep telling myself it was entirely uncalled for. I know why I was sucker punched. Their fear. That moment when my friend was hit and they thought "now or never because if this other larger guy wasn't going to put up a fight before he just may A: decide to put up a fight now, B: shout or call for help, C: both a and b." I keep wondering why they didn't just yell back and go their separate way. There was no chance they considered he and I, a couple of drunk 30 year old men out on a walk together, to be a threat to them. Why would they do that? Why would they attack us so viciously?
And then it dawned on me. Thinking back 12 years. How righteously furious I was then for dozens of reasons, some complex some as simple as I wanted an excuse to pass on the hurt inside of me to anyone who gave me an excuse to. Ready to fight anyone and any inanimate object that didn't "respect" me no matter how pointless or stupid. I didn't want to rob you. I wanted to hurt you as badly as I could get away with. Year after year after year, getting more angry, more sensitive, more irrational, but always questioning it, breaking it apart, tearing down the engine, trying to figure out what the hell it was making this bomb of my body go tick tick tick. I still haven't figured it out exactly.
Through years of study, years of violence toward others sometimes warranted, often times not, culminating in things I will never be able to take back, I left those courses behind me. Thirty years old all I care about is writing, getting home in one piece, spending time with my cats, seeing my friends when I can, and taking care of the only body I have left until my brain breaks apart or my body just will not run anymore. I could care less who respects me and who doesn't. I could care less who breaks my jaw and who decides to be merciful. Save for a handful of very specific, very important, exceptions, if I ever get so mad that the only language I can speak is the original dialect, violence itself, I will speak through breaking my own skin and nerves, not someone else's. The simpler truth is that for most of those kids, they will never learn or even begin to learn how to learn that things could be different. Some of them will end up dead. Others will circle their private drains until their live's dwindle and die out.
Those idiots aren't there yet. It was stupid of me to believe a 12 year gap in understanding what a good night with a friend really is, and what it can mean in the face of a world, in the face of my world once dominated by violence. They didn't silence my happiness. If worst comes to worst and I can never quite use my jaw the way I could before that night again, I have always wanted to learn sign language.
Do I hate them for it? Of course. Would I like to find one of them, knock him senseless, wrap him duct tape and put him in the bed of my truck and take him home? Would I like to duct tape his arm to a sheet of plywood after gagging him with #0 steel wool and use my belt sander grind away the first knuckle of each digit of his immobilized hand and then shatter the wrist of his other? Would I like to drive down river and dump his body at a drainage gate? Of course. That would achieve nothing. I'd be happy for a while until the next week when the pain set in again and I would need to find another one and that life is not for me as long as I continue to refuse it and allow the rest of myself to flourish. Maybe they'll learn. Maybe a few of them will think about and ask themselves essential questions.
Happiness and love are precious and not to be squandered under all but the most extreme circumstances. Especially not in this world's economy.
///=sigh= I could really go for a slice of pizza right about now. I'll melt some ice cream instead.
The Best Thing
About living with a kitten is that you only get to sleep a few hours at a time, regardless of what's going right or wrong within your own head.
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