Tag: cancer (Page 6 of 8)

it never ends

February 23, 2016 / writersamr / 0 Comments

I don’t feel like I’ve
beaten anything. I don’t
feel victorious. I feel
tired in a way
that sleeping won’t remedy.

It never ends,
it just subsides.

I had another bad dream
about hospitals and cancer last night.
But at least my dress has flowers on it.

Whoever said nothing bad can
happen while you’re asleep
was wrong. Nightmares can happen.
The past can happen, again and again.
The future can happen – every version of it.
Then when you wake up it can all come true,
or not, or you could live out a version of
reality you had never even thought of.
Better or worse. Suspense without the thrill.
Sleep is your worst fiction. Reality is
even more of a nightmare.
It never ends.

survivor thoughts

February 21, 2016 / writersamr / 0 Comments

Survivors
are the least important,
the
ones with the least need for help.
Lowest
priority on the list. Our journey is done.
We
won.

I don’t feel like a winner.

Why am I upset when I survived, my story’s been told,
I’m
out the other side, I’m perfectly alive?
Where
is my gratitude? There are people
worse
off than me, worse off than I
ever
was, therefore mitigating
anything
I’ve ever felt, of course.

My
emotional needs are nothing
compared
to those with stage four
who
suffer so much physically,
some
who need a miracle.
I
have so much to be
grateful
for. I’m
so
lucky.

Sharing
a picture of a candle on Facebook
does
not make me feel respected or honoured
[1 share = 1
prayer]
it
just reminds me of things I don’t need
any
help to be reminded of.
[1 share = 1
trigger]

We
don’t fight, we survive
and
it’s not our fault that
we’re
not the heroes
we’re
painted as.
We
are not soldiers.
We
are just people
trying
to get by.
There
is no more
courage
or
strength in us
than
resides in
anyone
else.

We
haven’t
‘won
the battle’
any
more than
others
failed.

I Lost the Game

February 5, 2016 / writersamr / 0 Comments

Remember that game from when we were kids, where the whole point of the game is to not think about the game and when you do, you have to say “I lost the game”, causing everyone around you to also lose the game?

And then after that, all you can think about is the game, even though you hadn’t thought about the game in a long time and the only thing that set you off was thinking “hmm, I haven’t thought about the game in a while, I’ve been doing really well”?

That’s what thinking about my cancer history is like.

It’s a fucking tedious game.

I thought I’d been doing well. I had been doing well. It’s just been a bad week is all. Next week will be better.

pairs of eyes

December 11, 2015 / writersamr / 0 Comments

If enough people see your scars
do they get any lighter?
if more people know why
there is a cavity
where your bowel should be
does your stomach stick out
a little less?
Is there power in more pairs
of eyes?
I feel better for being known
a tiny bit better.
I feel stronger for standing
up, validated, vindicated,
now that I have ‘come out’
in a sense, as a person who
has been brave, who has
seen things
no pair of eyes should
have to see. Maybe now
I’ll feel a little more free
too, a little more of a
loose cannon, with no
need for explanation.
I should now already be
justified in anything
I say or do about this.
I only hope those new
pairs of eyes can see
that this is a
terrible, and terribly
important part
of me.

The Colour of Cancer

October 20, 2015 / writersamr / 0 Comments

What colour is cancer?
Not the colour of cheerful ribbons.
Not the pink of awareness,
or fun-run t-shirts, or a
decorative brooch.

The colour of cancer is blood red to me,
the kind of red that makes my
stomach flip over.
Red trespassing where it isn’t
supposed to be. The white walls
of the disinfected hospital.
The white of my mother’s tissue.
The pastel pattern of a gaping surgical gown.
The colour of a sleepless night, of shadows
morphing into hallucinations.
The blinding light of sunshine intruding
through curtains opened at 8am sharp.
The deep shining orange-red of
my insides. The dark green of
bile. The non-colour of cardboard
sick bowls and bed pans.
The colour of thick, opaque days
I couldn’t see past. The colours I see now
when I turn around.
Crumbling brown soil on my brother’s grave.
The darkest thoughts of my own resting place.
The ugliest palette.

Is This Survivor’s Guilt?

September 25, 2015 / writersamr / 0 Comments

I had never experienced survivor’s guilt until very recently. Today at work we had a Macmillan Coffee Morning to raise money for cancer support, and I figured the day was going to be hard. For the first hour
I sat squeezing my stress ball trying to stop my hands from shaking. I don’t even know why they were shaking. My discomfort and reluctance to have anything to do with cancer charity related events seems somewhat illogical. I mean, the Macmillan charity has never tried to kill me. So I already started today having a difficult time trying to understand myself.

Do We Ever Really Beat Cancer?

September 18, 2015 / writersamr / 0 Comments

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.

Disintegrating

September 9, 2015 / writersamr / 0 Comments

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.

***

Haunted like me

September 1, 2015 / writersamr / 0 Comments

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.

How do you tell new friends about your cancer history?

July 15, 2015 / writersamr / 0 Comments

I’m asking because I really want to know. In a way, if it’s something that happened in the past, it kind of feels weird mentioning it to someone. But if a person is becoming a friend, you want them to know you better, right? I feel like if someone doesn’t at least know that I had cancer, then they don’t know enough about me, because now it’s a big part of me and my outlook on life.

Tag: cancer (Page 6 of 8)

it never ends

survivor thoughts

I Lost the Game

pairs of eyes

The Colour of Cancer

Is This Survivor’s Guilt?

Do We Ever Really Beat Cancer?

Disintegrating

Haunted like me

How do you tell new friends about your cancer history?

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