Survivor’s Guilt

How I’ve changed may not be apparent. I limp. Read and write, make tea at the stove as I practiced in rehab. Sometimes, like fire, a task overwhelms me. I cry for days, shriek when the phone rings. Like a page pulled from flame, I’m singed but intact: I don’t burn down the house. Later, cleared to drive, I did outpatient rehab. Others lost legs or clutched withered minds in their hands. A man who can’t speak recognized me and held up his finger. I knew he meant One year since your surgery. Sixteen since his. Guadalupe wishes daily to be the one before. Nobody is that. Sometimes, like love, the neurons just cross fire. You don’t get everything back.