I tried waxing my legs today for the first time in years.
Then I remembered why I haven’t used wax strips in years.
It hurts. Sure, it doesn’t hurt for long, but it’s so very
unnecessary to put myself through it. I’ve been through
enough physical pain in the past and probably will in the
future, all of it relatively unavoidable. So why would I
cause myself more pain for no real reason? I threw the
wax strips away, but not before realising that although
I’m so good at avoiding causing myself physical harm,
I do very little to avoid hurting myself emotionally and
mentally. It’s like shaving my brain with wax strips
instead of a razor. If my brain were hairy.
Page 40 of 45
Poor me.
Pour me
another.
This summer will be five years since I had my sub total colectomy (bowel removal/intestine eviction). So, essentially that will be five years of being cancer-free. I’d quite like to do something to “celebrate” (as much as you can celebrate once having a life-threatening disease). I googled it to get some ideas and there are a lot of sites about it, apparently it’s called a cancerversary, but that sounds a bit weird. I looked up the exact date of my operation, and it was 27th July 2010. Funnily enough, two days ago me and my parents booked a trip to Gothenburg, Sweden (I’m learning Swedish and can’t wait to go). We’re going on our trip on the 27th. Weird, right?
So that’s kind of a celebration. Though I might not want to mention that to my parents, because, awks. Awkward to talk about what happened full stop, but awkward celebrating me being okay when my brother died of cancer. Is that survivor’s guilt?
I don’t know. Plus it’s occurred to me that any thoughts about celebrating six months in advance could be a bit previous. Like tempting fate. So. That makes me feel scared. So, mixed feelings. Happiness, relief, sorrow, guilt, fear, impatience.
I’ve been neglecting my blog/poetry a little this week as I have been working on a flash fiction piece for a competition. I spent all week on this one story I didn’t like very much, and today when the deadline came along, I wrote something that I think is a lot better in less than two hours. Go figure!
Normal service will resume next week!
This is the new normal.
Take it and run with it because it’s all there is.
So what, we have to go to therapists now
just to have someone who will listen?
Just to have someone who understands
or at least listens for long enough to realise
there’s something there yearning
to be understood?
Someone to shine a light in the fog:
I’m starting to realise that’s all I’ve ever
really wanted from anyone.
My door has always been wide open,
now flung off the hinges as I sit
muttering to myself: “This is the new normal.”
I am still adamant that I’ve never cared
what anyone else thinks about me. I just care about
how I’m treated. That’s not the same thing.
I’ll be myself even if it kills me.
At the very least, I’ll try to understand me.
I have never been more honest in my poetry than I am these days, and I have never loved writing more.
If I’m the person
other people think I am
I can’t take it.
There’s nothing wrong with the scars on our hands,
we’re all just trying to understand.
It seems I’m still learning the art of knowing when to finish a poem.
You know, instead of trying to cram every idea that pops into my head into that one poem I’m currently working on. Because sometimes I have ideas that sort-of-but-don’t-really fit into one neat piece, and if I try to mash them together they become something that’s not neat at all. I know I don’t edit my poems much, but I do try to give them some kind of finesse. Also someone, somewhere from inside my memory, said something like “If a poem only has three good lines, it should only be three lines long.”
English Clouds
Trying not to think about it
is far too much like hard work.
Believe me, I have been trying
to kerb my thoughts, to retrain
myself, but I don’t have the
discipline, and it is exhausting.
It is very much like trying
to tell the English clouds
not to cry about it.
I have missed
the complexity of this
Five hours before dawn
we hunt for our clothes in the
dim blue light of phones
