You'll Never Kick a Ball Again

The ball was suspended in the air,
Dropping slowly,
It was always my ball to win,
In I slid, winning it cleanly,
Then the studs made their connection,
Muscles snapped, bones cracked,
My leg was no long my leg,
It was hanging by a thread…

The ambulance came,
Strapped me up good and tight,
The pain was unbearable,
But it was the thought of never playing again
That brought tears to my eyes,
Everyone’s constant reassurances
Almost had me fooled into thinking it would be ok,
Almost…

Two days later,
After three major surgeries
(attempts to reconstruct my leg),
The doctor looked at me
With the most forlorn expression I have ever seen,
Biting his lower lip,
Showing blatant fear,
And he said…

You’ll never kick a ball again…

You can’t imagine the pain this sentence brought,
You can’t comprehend how devastated I was,
Simply because it seems so ridiculous
To feel that depressed about something like football,
People are dying, they all said,
You nearly lost your leg,
And you’re in tears about never kicking a football again?!
You’ve had it lucky…

No I haven’t,
The happiest I have ever been
Is on a football pitch,
In the heat of a match,
Tackles flying, the ball zipping,
Even when brought down to the lowest of the lows
I was always happier having the chance to experience those lows,
Then being at home and not experiencing them at all…

Now that chance has been taken away from me,
All because someone was half a second slower than I was,
It doesn’t seem fair,
Life rarely is,
But no matter what people do to try and console me,
No matter how many times they say I’m lucky
To still have a chance at walking again,
I’ll always be haunted by those doctor’s words to me…

You’ll never kick a ball again…