So Quickly It Fades
So quickly it fades--
the memories of pain, gnawing at the empty spaces
in the matrices of your bones,
fear sloshing through the caverns
of calcium,
tainted with nausea.
So quickly it fades--
the familiar desperation you feel
shielding the flickering flame,
straining to see into the voids,
following the ripples between stalagmites,
searching for a way out that
simply doesn't exist.
The only thing there is the one
other thing consuming the oxygen
you desperately need--
you need it to see
but the longer it burns
the less you can breathe--
as if there wasn't precious little enough
already.
So quickly it fades--
that deep, sinking feeling of realization
that up here in the air, where you breathe
where you have minutes of life left
(which is not much, but it's more than no minutes left)
is going to be your grave, and the only way
the only way
you might get out--might--
is to leave the air.
You put your face, your head
down
into the water,
when the burn of carbon dioxide makes you
heave, desperate to breathe,
desperate to inhale
you just grit your teeth--
sometimes you can't even do that so you
keep swimming with your mouth open
with the water pushing the air bubble
back into your mouth
and you tuck your chin
and keep the pressure just so--
and you keep, pulling yourself through
deeper and deeper through
the indignities.
Oh, God. The indignities.
So quickly it fades--
the memory of the indignities.
How to explain the indignity?
First, it's just a fever that comes and goes--
the weakness,
the sweating through your shirt and down your face
like someone opened a faucet in your hairline
and under your pits
and the dizziness and exhaustion so deep
and profound that a single breath more feels too taxing to perform.
They think you're faking. Attention seeking.
Hypochondriac. You can see it in their eyes
as they write down your symptoms between pen clicks.
Just a flu. Just a bug. Doxycycline
shot of steroids, some painkillers.
Been too stressed.
Get some sleep. You'll be fine.
Then, come the tests.
They call it poking and prodding,
but what they really mean
is 5 AM lights on
needles fishing around under your skin
and deep into your radial artery--
or at least in the vicinity of the radial artery
--or into the side of your neck
with the large bore needles
again and again and again
failure after failure after failure
until they throw up their hands and go
"fuck it, time to Edward Scissorhands this bitch."
Then when the test comes back positive
they need to check if the cancer
has infiltrated your bones
so they take a little peen hammer
and a large bore needle
pull down your pants
swab your hip
and hammer deep into you and tear your marrow out.
Then, on to the port insertion:
A slice, and a finger inserted into the wound
and wiggled around to loosen the skin
like one would to a Thanksgiving turkey
except instead of butter and thyme and salt
a tube and a port
then a few rough stitches and skin glue
because
"We're radiology not plastics."
Except I'm 28 and the only part of my body
that I like is my decolletage--
my boobs are my only redeeming asset
on an otherwise failure of a body.
But this seems like small beans.
The real indignity begins with the puking--
so much puking, so violently
until you're not sure that what's on your face
or in your eyes or up your nose
or in your mouth
is bile, or food chunks
or tears
or blood
or chyme
or splashes of toilet water
blown back up like a geyser in the wake
of the violence of your vomit and dripping
back down like light percussion.
But even that pales in comparison
to the indignity of the shits.
And the shits are so shitty.
You squirt. Yeah.
You can't even feel when you need to go
until you go
and sometimes you go when you sneeze
or stand up.
The shit just squirts
and the real winners are when
you vomit and the force of the
vomit causes the squirt.
And then the real winners are when
you get a little golden trickle in there, too.
All while your bald, pimply,
eyebrowless, eyelashless head hangs in the toilet
getting a fecal chaser.
So quickly it fades, these memories.
The vows to live life
are quickly consumed by the necessities to live
to eat, to house oneself,
to buy insurance (oh, the irony).
And school. And work.
And your identity grows
as your strength grows
as your hair grows
as your brain grows back--
and then--
and then...
The fevers and night sweats, and nausea
and exhaustion so deep and profound that taking
another breath seems beyond you
start up again
and,
every minutia of the absolute terror
that is the cancer
that is the indignity and fear
and regret and sadness
and fury at the unfairness of the world
slams you right onto your ass
and you are just--humbled
by your absolute powerlessness,
and it's like the hysterical coward that was within you
was never triumphed over at all.
