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?