Sam Alexandra Rose

Writer, researcher, music lover, cancer survivor with CMMRD ("double" Lynch syndrome)

Page 31 of 45

Free Time

What am I doing with that look on my face?
That pained expression that’s so hard to erase.
What am I doing with this armful of feelings?
Trying to put them down and decipher the meanings.
What am I doing with this life all a-jumble?
Watching it rumbling past with a grumble.

I don’t want to progress, I just want to move backwards –
There’s no meaning in PPC and AdWords.
My soul is attached to a man with a guitar
who pours out his feelings, leaves my mouth ajar
because he’s plucked my thoughts right out of my brain
and now I don’t think, just hear his soaring refrain.

Most of the time we have is spoken for
I want to recycle old hours, relive them once more
and contemplate the minutes that make up my days,
rewind to my younger, more naïve ways,
go back to being like a carefree pup
and be granted permission to stop growing up.

But that just can’t happen, so what do I do?
Make the most of my free time when I’m with you,
daydream about leaving the old nine-to-five
and just make the most of being here and alive.

Diamonds in the Asphalt

I remember lying on my belly
in the playground at six years old,
grazed elbows and broken fingernails,
trying to pick glistening stones
out of their asphalt prison
because I thought they were diamonds.

There are a billion stars under our
feet, twinkling in their icy garb,
and so many people don’t notice them.
These days they are all I want to see.

Do We Ever Really Beat Cancer?

I’m not going to spend long on this because I know this subject has been tackled a lot already – there are problems with the language
around cancer – battle metaphors, and so on, which seem to imply that people who ‘lose the battle’ didn’t try hard enough, or that people with cancer can do something about it, which is ridiculous.

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I Am Pluto

I am Pluto –
I have been told what I am
and what I am not.

But I am not Pluto –
My status is not dependent
on what other people think of me.

I am Pluto –
I could be big and mighty
but I’m made to feel small.

I am not Pluto –
I am not devoid of craters,
nor am I mountainous.

I am Pluto –
I can be difficult to understand,
and so far, far away.

But I am not Pluto –
There are no secrets here,
I am not a mystery to be solved.

I am a planet. I am not a planet.
I am Pluto. I am not Pluto.

Disintegrating

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.

***

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Portrait

I am plagued by what
people assume I will be.
And I don’t want to accept it
and smile with you.
I’m not happy to be the picture
you have painted of me.
I will not stand and pose like a
mirror image of that portrait.
I don’t want you to frame me that way.
I just want to be seen as what I am
and the potential of what I could be.

Haunted like me

Ghosts have found a home
wrapped around my throat
and I can’t breathe.
that’s where they’re most
comfortable; that’s where
I expect them to be.
it’s testing time;
these are testing times
if you are haunted like me.

I have made friends with
my ghosts and they understand
my thoughts. They float inside
my head. There are ghosts
resting on my chest,
juggling with my breath and
I can’t catch it.
They won’t let me near it.
I am playing piggy in the middle
with my ghosts and it makes me
too tired to be fired up,
too tired but still I am reaching out to
try to catch my breath; I am
reaching out for someone who is
haunted like me.

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