Free After I Wake by Emma Griffiths

anything I wanted right then, and it would have been perfect. I let my eyes flutter shut as I smiled. I felt giddy. It was right to die whole, happy. I started to laugh.
    The door crashed open downstairs, and my mom was home. It hadn’t been long. She must have forgotten something. Moments later she screamed. But I was already reaching for my freedom.

Now: 3:22 a.m.
Monday, August 26th
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    I SIT up in bed, wide-awake, surrounded by darkness. I can’t breathe for a moment, and the wispy tendrils of my nightmare, although it could have been a flashback, are still shrouding me and my wrists tingle uncomfortably. Once I realize that I am not dying, that I am alive, I feel an immediate and overwhelming relief. My breath is shaky as I squeeze my eyes shut and focus on where I am. I am in my bed. I am okay. I am alive. Thank goodness.
    The sky outside glows with a flash of lightning, and I look out the window as thunder booms. It’s a true summer storm, the kind that can shake people from the deepest slumber, or in my case, free them from the nightmares of their darkest moments. I clamber out of bed and head for the beanbag under the window, sitting in it and staring outside for a few minutes.
    I haven’t heard a storm like this in a very long time. It’s been months. I probably heard, or more accurately noticed, thunder before I lost my hand. It’s pleasant. I’d forgotten about the way thunder shatters the silence of the night. It’s almost musical. This is a good storm. It’s loud and powerful and angry.
    It’s funny actually, how you can be the very center of your own universe, and be so involved with yourself. But nature honestly doesn’t give a shit. It carries on, absolutely regardless of how much you hurt. It storms and rages but softens and smiles after. It just keeps on trucking. It’s so much bigger than you and cannot stop for something so small. The ocean does not stop because a single rock is displaced, so why, then, would nature wait?
    With those thoughts in mind, I bolt out of my bed and race to my desk, opening drawers and looking for my emptiest notepad and a pencil. The clock glows behind me, advertising the time of 3:22 a.m.
    By 3:54 a.m., I’ve written a poem. I have to sit back in shock. I’ve done it. I finally wrote a poem. My hand is cramping and sore, but it’s worth it. An entire poem. I can’t believe it. I’ve written an entire poem. It’s incredibly strange… to find that I can still write. Granted, it’s sloppy, and the handwriting is pathetic, though I can improve. I can get my act together. I can adapt. Darwin might have been onto something after all. I am thankful that it took a crazy thunderstorm to snap me out of a proverbial drought of nonwriting.
    It quickly becomes a mantra. I repeat it to myself while I walk circles around my bedroom, trying to accept it while Sarah watches sleepily from the bed with her ears perked. I read it about seventy times, at least.
    I’m in a miniature shock, it’s an actual poem.
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    Clouds roll in, a distant din, there is something coming.
    Lightning flashes, thunder crashes, the wind and rain celebrate.
    We find it there, a charge in the air, as the world becomes fresh
    again.
    The grass stands tall, bearing it all, while hell storms all around.
    The skies clear, sunshine is near, the muddy roads are freed.
    We feel alright in the oncoming night, when silence will blanket
    the Earth.
    But then in the dark the devil finds its mark, and it all begins
    again.
    Is it a curse when we’ve survived worse, as Mother Nature
    screams her fury?
    Huddling together, we’ll face whatever may come to us in the
    morning.
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    I can’t even focus on the fact that it rhymes, despite my blatant loathing of the matching words. I’ll grow to hate the scheme eventually, but I will be forever indebted to the poem for bringing me back.
    It isn’t until seven more