This Is Going To Suck - Matthew Dicks Poem by Michellina Cookington

It's December 23rd 1988. I'm 17 years old, I'm coming out of the record store. My friend Pat sees me, he asks me what's in the shopping bag I'm holding. I tell him it's a concert t shirt. Christmas present for Benjy are friends and my best friend pet looks at me a little funny and Pat's only 14 at the time but he's already cooler than I will ever be in my entire life so when he looks at me like that I always pay attention that tells me that guys don't buy Christmas presents for other guys and especially surprise Christmas presents he tells me that he's had girlfriends for like six months and never bought them a thing so for me to buy denji a Christmas present is a little odd.
I'm suddenly feeling very self-conscious about the betta fish in the backseat of my car that I bought at the pet store for Pat like an hour ago and the comic books for food and the sweatshirt for Tom and all the presents.
And I know that Pat is right that my parents might my evil stepfather and their failing marriage and no money has made every Christmas for years just a misery but for the first time in my life I have money in my pocket I'm a manager at McDonald's making $5.75 an hour working full-time while I'm in highschool and I am the richest person I know and so I'm going to use this money to buy myself a great Christmas.
I'm heading home now I need to get my uniform cuz I have a shift at McDonald's later I got to get these presents into the house. It's starting to snow out it's kind of lovely I'm driving my mother is 1976 Datson B210. It's a car about the size of a box of Pop-Tarts.
I'm coming around the corner and I'm heading down a hill when my car starts to slide into the opposite lane I look up and I see a white Mercedes Benz coming right at me they say that looks like this for them slow down and it is absolutely true in the three seconds it takes before our two cars hit head-on my last thought is I'm not wearing my seatbelt and I always wear my seatbelt but in the excitement of buying Christmas presents in the rush to get home I forgotten on the worst day of my life to forget.
My second thought is in moments like this I've been told to steer into the skid but it occurs to me I don't know what the hell that really means and I still don't know to this day.
And my third thought is just one two sentences five words long and I say it aloud this is going to suck and it does the windshield my chin catches the steering wheel in the entire bottom row of my teeth come flying out into my mouth my legs come forward in my right leg becomes embedded in the air conditioning unit down to the bone and my left leg hits their emergency release brake it knocked the handle off but it's skewers my left leg it's all over in a second and then Shoppe descends upon me and I feel no pain or fear I climb out of the car I'm sort of crumpled next to the car the woman the Mercedes gets out and she's completely unharmed until she sees me and then she vomits and passes out.
The first people to arrive at the scene it's a pickup truck full of teenagers and a kid about my age gets to me first in the mud in the snow he gives me a look over and then he says dude.
It is the most accurate medical assessment that I want to see that..
A police officer arrives you put a code on me and I've got broken ribs so it feels like a thousand pounds and I'm wondering who the hell.
I'll find out later that my heart stopped beating and I stopped breathing for a minute no way flight.
When I get to the emergency room the doctors get to work on me right away to picking out glass to getting my legs ready for surgery the wire in my teeth down a nurse comes over and asked me for my phone number and I gave her my parents number and then I give her the number for McDonald's cuz I'm supposed to be working that night and she sort of scoffs at it but I say no like I was dead 20 minutes ago but that does not run well without me and bless her heart she calls McDonald's my parents they don't show up I find out later that when they heard I was stable they go to check the car out first and I'm waiting for a surgeon because of December 23rd and they're hard to find and I'm waiting and I'm feeling alone but I'm not alone because when I called McDonalds to tell them I was out those people started calling other people and the waiting room is now filling up with 16 and 17 and 18 year old kids and one fourteen-year-old boy and my friend Benji is the first one to arrive.
They can't come into the emergency room to see me cuz they're not family but they roll my garden to the other side of the emergency room and they open a door and one by one each one of my friends dance in the door and they weigh and they gave me the thumbs-up and I say stupid things to make me laugh.
Benji never gets his concert T-shirt and crude never gets his comic books in the betta fish is the only casualty of the car accident that..
But it turns out that Pat is wrong cuz you can give your friends Christmas presents cuz they give me the best one I've ever received that gives me family and until I meet my wife 15 years later are the only family that I have and it turns out they're the only family that I need thank you.