Broken Rope
By Zarah Parker
Snap, eyes widen, black
Lungs empty, gasping yet unable to
understand how to refill
burn across shoulders, spine
the thought “no”
lungs beat
back unresponsive
This poem feels so dramatic, but it’s actually just about when I got the wind knocked out of me last year. Considering I’ve never experienced much in physical pain, this happening was just about the worst.
Memoir of a Writer 
What happened? (You are under no obligation to tell.)
Novel pain, or other critical physiological responses, can be quite shocking. I can remember being bewildered, worried, and confused in my mid-teen years when I would occasionally suffer an intermittent loss of most of my vision in one eye. Never happened when I was near a doctor. Didn’t figure out what the problem was until decades after it stopped. (Migraines. Yep, they can do that.)
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Have you ever seen those circular swings? You can usually buy them at sporting goods stores. My brother had one attached to a really high tree branch. One night I was laying on it while my nephew was swinging me. I told him he should jump on and watch the sky with me 🤣 (previously it’s had much more weight on it so I wasn’t worried in the slighted) Well he pushed me one more time before jumping on and as soon as he did the part of the rope seesawing against the bark snapped. I heard it and literally thought the word “no” before my back slammed into the ground. My nephew landed on top of me and was fine. Luckily my neck was supposed by the edge of the swing, so while I did hit my head it wasn’t as bad as my upper back. I really wasn’t that high off the ground, but I guess the momentum from the swing swinging brought it down extra hard. I had the wind knocked out of me for the first time in my life. It took awhile for me to breath normally and my lungs ached for days and my back for weeks.
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Ah. Fortunate for you that the impact was so broadly distributed across your body, sore though it left you.
Can’t say I even had such a fall. Went through a hammock once, thanks to some roughhousing friends. Opened up a cut, that was all.
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