Cancer

I have just finished my study on Cancer. Talk about F**ked. Sorry but it is true. Only those who have it can understand. Cancer is the deepest bodily betrayal of itself.

Cancer is both merciful and vengeful.  Cancer is you. You are cancer. I did not quite understand what cancer was before my education. I was under the impression that cancer was an invading source that only destroyed and left PBS specials in its wake. Cancer is that. But is is so much more. Cancer is unique to every person. Cancer is customized like a pair of boots suited to fit.  The Latin term for cancer is  “crab”. No star signs here, no dreams of astrological. Just a wipe out disease. Both a murderer and it’s victim.

Tonight I shucked 3 pounds of crab. The spiny legs, the dark body meat. The crab cut my fingers as I was seeking its flesh.  I ate the cancer with butter over newspaper.

My education has given me a glimpse of the process of cancer and so much more into the cellular destruction of the body and the consequences of treatment. This was my last unit of study and test before my degree; quite rightly so as it was the most difficult to read, to know.

Still I wonder what is cancer? I have “learned” what cancer is. Or have I?

When I was a child I watched an HBO special (back in the 80’s) of a child, male, who suffered from leukemia. Leukemia is cancer of the blood and one of the most fatal if not the most fatal of cancers. For years I feared that I too had cancer. But that was all that I could conceive before I discovered what cancer was. I am starting to see what cancer is.

Cancer is our bodies destroying itself cell by cell.

Why would any body do this? I do not know, they do not know. No doctor, no pharmacist, no chemist. No one knows why the body’s cells do this. They speculate but do not seem to know for sure. They have speculative causes and theories but cancer seems to touch each patient differently.

Cancer has now become my life’s metaphor. I feel cancer in my life. People that are like tumors must be cut or radiated or chemically stripped off of me. Cancer has now become a very unique understanding for me.  But this is all it can do for me. I do not have cancer. But now I know what cancer is. My every day life. Those who have died have not died in vain to compensate drug companies and blasphemous power seeking charities. Those who have died have given me an understanding of what is my body, yet foreign and clumsy, a knowledge of it. Cancer, cancer of  all.

I have just received my degree and for this I say to you. All of you whom I will meet. All of you who have cancer.

I do not have cancer. I have a disease of the mind that will inhibit my growth and my life. You have cancer. I can relate to your demise. But I want you to know I will see you and your sick cells. I want you to know that I will be there for you if you need me. I want you to see me as well. I know what it feels like to have your own body destroy itself. I know what is happening to you. I am just a girl who has learned what cancer really is. But I understand. I see you. I see you.

This cancer. This is so much. Why do we have cancer?

This is the rub. Why? Cancer? Why?

Why do you find us… so unique?

November

November. November. November.

This is the season of pain. The season of loss. The season of absolute agony.

This time of year. The depression is here. Depression; though comforting is cruel. She is truly a mistress of madness.

November is death. November remembers all that it has claimed.

This morning I could feel one more piece of my mind slip away from me. One more piece of happiness drift away like smoke in a damp sky. In it’s place is now another little black hole. My mind is covered with little black holes. All of the memories come back in November. My month of misery. It took me years and years to drink away the memories. In the process I took out the good ones to destroy the bad ones. Now just hundreds of little black holes. Soon I will be a black hole.

Will I survive this one? Will I collapse on myself like a dying star?

I am tired of pretending I am something I am not. Only one person knows me and only two people care. It is my own fault. My evasive lies and manipulative self expression are all false.

Who would want to see this? I have wasted too much energy hiding myself, masking myself and covering my tracks. Now I have no idea who I am.

But it is November. What will she claim this year? What will she rip from my spirit? What will she spit to the floor as she washes her hands of me?

Maybe she has come for my broken heart. My mind is filled with too many holes now. She will not accept it.

Will I survive as she rips my broken heart from my soul?

November, you cruel bitch you. How I have missed you.

1 AM

It is 1 am.

I want him.

My rage has peaked. My sorrow is set. I want him.

There is this man I know. He is not my husband. I am ashamed to say it.

There is this man. He has long dark hair and eyes cast in shadows. I want this man now. It is 1 am and I am tired and burned. I seek to curl up in his arms. I seek him like flame craves dragons breath.

I want this man. He is evasive to me unless I try to find him. This man is no friend of mine, he is no love.

He is what I want and I want him now.

I will go and curl up next to my husband and I will pretend that this night has not been like so many others.

This night of cold again and pain again and loneliness again.

I will go now and lay next to my husband. But inside I will burn for this man I want.

He will never know how much I dream, ache for, love, admire, hope for and crave this man. My husband will never know. Thank God.

Thank God my husband does not know.

Thank God he does not know that he is this man I want.

It is 1 am. I am tired and aching. I want my love.

It is 1 am. I want Brandon.

It is 1 am. I am going upstairs to sleep beside the man of my dreams.

Thank God he knows.

MY One.

My All.

Signing Off

It is like a knife so I take a knife to my flesh and soul. Blood comes through the seams. The storm has past and I lay half dead and tired. God can have me now to send to hell. Go and take me God.

Take me GOD. Come and get me and send this unbaptized baby to HELL.

For I am lost in the madness of my mind.

I have lost.

Come get me God. For you must have the desire to send this bitch to the screaming ends of hell.

For all I have loved and lost you must judge me all the same and relinquish me to the minds of man.

I believed in YOU. Now you must come and get me. I am in the breath of madness.

Cut quick and clean. If I see tomorrow then we shall see if you are what they say you are.

I pray they are mistaken. I believed you were better than this. I believe in YOU. But the mind of man has taken you from my lips and now man’s word is pouring from your spirit.

So take me and my unbaptized, unloved, blasphemous soul. Take me to the pits of hell. I have seen the pits in my dreams. If you want me there then I go.

My God. Have mercy on my soul.

Mom

Why did we part ways?

I am here. You are here.

Why do we divide?

There was Him. There was Robert.

Did we not live him?

Did you and I not coil around him like dunes eat water?

Did we not both beg of him for Enya and oysters?

Why did he leave?

Did we exhaust him so?

I would never believe that of him.

As we can never lay him down. I wonder if he always knew.

He stays silent in our dreams. Never speaking.

I wonder.

Is he binding us?

Did he always know?

If he had stayed would this be so?

Our life. Together.

Why does he not speak in our dreams?

You cannot return him to me. I cannot return him to you.

MOM?

Stay with me?

If we stick together we have a better chance.

You and me.

Stay with me. If you lose me then I lose you and we are both desert lost.

Stay with me. I will stay with you.

Maybe then he will talk to us again.

Take my hand and we will both go back to the desert. You and me. US. We will live in the dunes and dream of cats and wild things. Come with me. We are all that is left. We are desert bound.