Bulletproof. A Metaphor.

 ( for Madonna Badger.--you stay in my heart and you inspire me every single day.)


She began to get stronger with each passing day.
Now, she was able to see clearly out of both eyes. The bullet had narrowly missed them. Instead penetrating sharply just between them. Right between her eyes.
She could only recall the steely,searing pain as the lead met flesh and bone just before blowing her brain to bits inside her skull.

Months in shrouded darkness lying supine in her bed. Only able to sip liquids.
She would become comfortable, even agile in ways with the blackness. She was glad not to see.
Grateful not to see physically what she could only hear when friends and even some strangers gasped at what they saw when they saw her. When they thought she was asleep or in sedation---she could hear their sorrowful murmurs expressing doubt that she would ever survive something so catastrophic.

But,......she did.
The struggle to survive was harrowing.
One cannot heal such a crushing blow without hope and miracles.
Without persistence beyond any human measure.
After all, her heart still beat strongly inside her chest. It too, shared the pain of the wounds in the brain.
The heart and brain inhabiting the same broken-ness.

All that time, dwelling in the space of darkness, she often mused how life spared some yet relentlessly
demolished others. It made her angry . Bitter. For a time.

Brilliant sunlight beamed through the windows. Dusty curtains pulled back......the sun shining in her eyes...
her crystalline blue eyes. Her recovery becoming ever swifter.
Shattered bits of brain whole again with time.
Her heart beating triumphantly in her chest.

Against all staggering odds, she was after all.......bulletproof.


CJ Ellis    


( artwork credit: Cy Twombly "The Fire That Consumes")