Recovery Rendition

This whole week has been a writing frenzy. Hell, the last two weeks, really. Once they put the last screw in my forearm or wrist (I have no clue what the drilling order was, I just know they counter-sank that final motherfucker), I could use my fingers again.

Did it hurt? You fucking A it did. It hurt like a goddamned banshee chewing its way out of my bones. But I could type. And that was enough.

So there I was: a foot healing from pins holding my metatarsals together, a wrist and forearm screwed into some kind of cyberpunk approximation of “functional”, numb patches all over my face, a piece of my lip missing, a left knee full of fluid, and shoulders that bark like hellhounds every time I move.

Through all of that, I bit down, breathed through the pain, and started cranking out the final chapters of my memoir, And So, She Rose. I hired a proofreader. I hired an illustrator. I pushed that story across the goddamned finish line because it deserved to live.

But I didn’t stop there. Nope. Not even close.

Every morning, at 3 a.m., before the sun remembers it exists, I wake up with fire in my veins. And I write. I fucking write. Two brand-new 4,000-word short stories poured out of me like they’d been waiting in the walls. One of them is already accepted for publication. The other is out for consideration. And I just. keep. going.

This is important work. This is the work that matters.

I’m in a writing frenzy, slashing through pages like a hot knife through butter … which, by the way, is a bullshit metaphor. Who is heating their knives hot enough to melt butter but somehow not giving themselves third-degree burns on their index fingers? It’s a lie. A lazy-ass lie.

But this writing? This firestorm I’m riding through? It feels realer than anything I’ve ever done.

I’m writing like my life depends on it, but the truth is the opposite. My legacy depends on it. I don’t have much of one yet, not in the way that sticks, not in the way that echoes. But when I face that final moment (again…), I need to know my life fucking mattered.

This writing? This grind, this fire, these stories? This is how I carve my initials into the goddamned trunk of this world.

This accident crushed me. It damn near killed me. But it also lit me on fire.

So world, here I am.
Broken, yes.
But back.

And I’m not fucking done.