Cast

by Jessica Kraker

I can feel my bones mending, they pull and creak inside me like I am a machine being switched on after years of disuse. The doctor says that it is a good ache, it is a sign that I am healing. But I wonder why healing always has to hurt so much. A person in pain doesn’t need any more to deal with, let alone more pain, all in the name of getting better. Is it our body’s way to warn us? Telling us not to get hurt in the first place so that we won’t have to deal with the aches that make up our recovery?

That’s hardly fair. We rarely have a choice in the matter. Not everyone likes the pain enough to ask for it again. How many times have I suffered because of other people? Broken bones and stitches and injuries to the brain that will never heal. Doctors call it trauma. I call it losing the chance to live freely. My broken bones are mending. I feel it. But my mind is not. After being under siege for so long, I hardly know what good mental health even means. I don’t think it’s this.

I try not to think much of anything anymore. I didn’t want more pain, but it is starting to feel right. The healing hurts, true. Almost like breaking my bones twice. Good. I deserve it. It may not have been my choice, but it owns me now. Things are starting to blur. When the cast comes off, it will be like new. No one will know.