[super raw]
Diagnosis
“you’re a bit young for this,
don’t you think?”
she asked,
gently placing the needle
in my vein
She asked this like a mother
looking at a daughter in high
heels, awkward, the right
shoe size but
the wrong body
I simply blinked, staring at the tiles
overhead and said, “Yes”
the test tubes filled with blood
right size, wrong body I thought -
It was my third needle
of the day and I had
begun to question if
this was my new routine -
like diabetics, drawing blood
daily, testing,
one, two, three -
like the fabled young cancer
patients, spending their youths
in sterilized white rooms
A week ago I had been
dancing, drinking, mapping out
a clear path, a delicious love
affair,
now I lay white, wasted,
a cush-pin for syringes and
residents
I grew up in the breast cancer
capital of the western world -
at Sweet 16s most girls were
dedicating candles to survivor
mothers, aunts, cousins -
we accepted that it had come,
we accepted that it would come for us
but after
the degree, the wedding, the children,
the cruises, the photos with Micky -
after, when there seemed to be
time for it.
We secretly believed though
by that time - Our time,
there would be a cure;
a pill we could pop
just like our Prozacs,
a pill that would save
our womanhood.
So when it came to be
my time, I was ready,
in a way - open-mouthed,
awaiting the cure in a
small white form or
perhaps it would be
multiple, it did not matter,
what mattered was it
worked -
it would work -
it tried to work -
I tried to work.
There was no answer.
No single pill. Not even
a simple round of tests,
what they prescribed would
ease the symptoms but
not cure the condition.
Meeting my stare, the nurse
told me, “Don’t worry,
you’ve got your whole life
to figure it out”.