Concussion

You were not there the night I saw stars, though I am certain I told you about the night I saw stars, about how I had never believed it was possible to see stars that way, how I believed it was a trope of cartoons or comics. The night I saw stars, I learned that the body can withstand tremendous suffering, that it learns to see differently because of pain. After the surgery, the doctor told my mother that I thanked him in the recovery room. I do not remember thanking him, was much too sedated to know what I was saying, but I know that doctor walked into the waiting room to tell my mother I had thanked him. I know he said it with tears in his eyes. I know the stars I saw were not real, know they were the result of trauma, of the occipital bouncing off the skull. I know that the brain is fragile. I remember dissecting the brains of rats in college physiology, taking cross sections and samples. I know this is not scientific, but I believe my brain has a cross section for gratitude, believe my brain has a cross section for grief. I know that the doctor with tears in his eyes could not fix all the bones that shattered the night I saw stars. I know that the stars believed us well-matched. I know we were both born on a cusp, born into a thing that both was and was not, born into the margins, under a word used to describe margins, a word used to describe the valves of the heart, a word used to describe the point on a curve where two branches meet, the point where those branches die out, the point where they cease to flower.