We are the remnants
of our former selves.
We are the remains,
the leftovers.

To feel like you have been halved,
partially destroyed,
and to still have something
breaking you down bit by bit,
this is one of the hardest things.
How much of me will there be left?

There is something wrong with this.
There is something wrong with me.

I have survivor’s guilt
because while I feel traumatised
from what I’ve lived through
(and may yet live through still),
other people have actually died
and others still are grieving.

But I forget I am grieving too –
the loss of a self,
the loss of trust and confidence
the loss of untouched health.

and when I get wrapped up in this,
I forget to be grateful
and I feel guilty for a new reason.

too many feelings have formed
and now they all mesh together
in one big ball, creating
a new emotion that is
unidentifiable
and inescapable.

***

This is not the best thing I have ever written, by far. But I’ve been writing it in dribs and drabs as I do sometimes over the course of a day – a line here, a note there. It’s just something cathartic, and I think these days it helps even more to share it – sometimes it’s not enough to write it down, sometimes it helps to think that someone has read it, and maybe even gets it. I think this is maybe just a diary entry in a kind of poem format.

Anyway, I wrote it because I’m not doing very well with this whole cancer thing at the moment. My annual checkup with my consultant is in a month, and I just want to get it over with now. I can see it approaching in the distance, and it’ll be followed by a couple of other appointments – a CT scan and some other stuff. I hope it is, anyway – it’s my five year appointment, so I’m hoping my consultant doesn’t just discharge me, because I need him to keep an eye on me every year and keep sending me for checkups. So there’s that, and on my favourite soap at the moment a kid has cancer, and at work in a couple of weeks we’re having a Macmillan Coffee Morning which I’m supposed to be inviting my clients to… so that could be a bad morning. And my current favourite song, The Sound of Silence covered by Disturbed, mentions cancer. It’s just one line, but it still grates. The other day I thought I’d listen to Nirvana for a change, so I put on Heart Shaped Box. Guess what word that has in it, too? I just can’t get away from it at the moment, and this feeling isn’t going to be over until after all my appointments and test results come back. So, I could feel like this until the end of the year. Luckily I’m starting my MA Creative Writing soon so that will keep me busy, and hopefully I’ll be churning out stuff that’s a lot better than what I wrote today!