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when did you start loving me?
can you pinpoint the exact day
and time, the particular thing I
did to make you look at me
differently? I want to know
exactly what it felt like then,
exactly what it feels like now
that it is familiar, now that it
is normal. Show me how you
see me and we will compare
notes – reader interpretation
versus authorial intent.
If in doubt, grasp all of your words:
Close your eyes.
Reach into the lucky dip bag of vocab
like a child fishing for sweets.
Feel for the ones that best fit the palm of your hand,
the ones that mould to the hills of your knuckles,
that give way to the swirls of your fingertips without
leaving sticky residue on them.
Squeeze the words, with their hollow vowels and
crunchy consonants. Don’t crush them. Test them to see
which ones are hard, which ones will have the most impact,
which ones will bounce and which will fall flat.
Pull out those words and throw them
in the direction of your target. The page, the
cat, your mother. The armed robber in the bank with the
hostages. Make sure you get the delivery just right –
a gentle underarm toss or a heaving thrust for
those targets who are harder to reach. Let the words fly
and pray the good ones stick –
else be ready to flee for safety when it backfires, or to
work your arm until it’s sore and your message is received.
I still have last night’s smell on my hands:
the fruitiness of my perfume;
the remnants of a spicy ginger beer cocktail;
a glass full of limes;
a whiskey I can never remember the name of;
burnt, sweet, sticky marshmallows;
warmth and comfort and heat and ease –
so much ease.
The results are in for the IHadCancer.com Top Cancer Blogs of 2017! I’m very pleased to be named runner-up in the creativity category. It is an honour to be mentioned among so many other awesome blogs. I think everyone who is out there writing about cancer is pretty brave. And not brave for having cancer – because that is what it is – but brave for putting it all out there, for being a source of information and empathy, for sharing something painful and personal and contributing to a community. These awards are really cool because they introduce us to new sources for all of these things, and remind people that they are not completely alone. Congratulations to everyone!
I just found two poems I wrote, two and a half years apart, about two different people, and they fit together perfectly, and have almost the same title with only one word different. How very odd. It’s like one poem answers another; one person answers a call that they didn’t hear at the time and that wasn’t intended for them, yet still they appeared.
Another dream is dressing,
preparing for her entrance.
I hope she is good. I have
not paid for a ticket but
I have rights. The curtain
twitches and the lights
dim. I hope the dream is
in her best dress. Something
gold and glittery, hip-hugging,
trailing down to the floor as
the dream sways like she is
about to walk onto the red
carpet. Maybe her hair will
be wavy and flowing, topped
with a tiara. Stilettos lifting
the dream a little, making her
walk taller and stand straighter,
proud and excited to perform.
Sitting in the front row of the
theatre by myself, I am underdressed
in my pyjamas, but I am an
eager audience – stripy blue
and white bottoms and even
though it’s February now, a long-
sleeved top with Rudolph’s
face on it and a gimmicky
pink ball for a nose, which
strangely sticks out not far
from where my stoma used
to be. I am comfortable yet
vulnerable. I urge the dream
not to read my thoughts, not
to think about the day just gone
or the day about to ascend. I ask
her to perform a work of fiction,
to sing a happy, upbeat song
I won’t want to wake up from.
I pray for a play that strays
from my normal viewing –
that strays from dead relatives,
from haunted houses, from
familiar fears, from realism. The
curtains open and I see the silhouette
of the dream walk to the microphone.
I clap, my hands hollow and echoing
in my private purgatory. The
spotlight shines on her, and she begins.
The other day I wrote a blog post about how I tend to think of
my body as something separate from myself, rather than part of me. I had a bit of an epiphany and now I think that the narrative I’ve been using to describe my body and my relationship with it has been harmful. You might want to read that before wading into this nonsense – it’s really a series of tweets, and it’s not very long. Basically, cancer has fucked me up in terms of how I think about myself and my body. I’m sure other illnesses can do the same, so if any of these even vaguely relates, keep reading.
I have written a guest blog post for Lucy Turns Pages! It’s all about how writing has helped with my mental health in relation to cancer survivorship. Please take a look and let me know if it strikes a chord! You can find it here: “Writing About Mental Health and Cancer Survivorship”.
