Some Years “After the Almost-Apocalypse”

A breast
cancer scare hits hard
and fast--twisting, twisting,
twisting… the mind and gut
and leaving the heart feeling

drained, displaced, desolate. 

Those terrible days
(the ones that snail by
while your world is waiting,
waiting, waiting… to learn
if life is really rotting
inside the walls of your being)
those days are soul eaters.

But after
the almost-apocalypse is done,
when healers chant,
“You’re fine. You’re just fine”,
your world grows less bleak--
flesh and blood and bone exhale,
and the spirit blossoms

(differently) anew.

 

 

Daisy Sunshine by LoopyLady

- someone asked me, “Are you excited to get back to your normal life now that breast cancer is gone?” I told them that I wasn’t sure ‘getting back to normal’ was a realistic option for me. Later, after I had some time to think, I sent them a quote from Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book, to explain that after breast cancer, ‘it’s like your life breaks into a million pieces and when you put them back together, they don’t quite fit exactly the same.” Surviving (and thriving after the Breast Cancer Monster), requires hope, determination, self-love… and enough creativity to craft ourselves a new normal.

- I wrote the first version of this poem years ago; time has changed bits of it (and me).

– for Poets and Storytellers United (Friday Writings #134: It’s a Dirty Job)

Letter to My Pre-Breast Cancer Diagnosed Self

Dear Two-Breasted Magaly,

June is as hot as jalapeños in a Sahara mood, and you’ve just received a breast cancer diagnosis. You aren’t scared. You aren’t crying. You are no stranger to serious illness. Still, I must warn you that this flesh-eating beast is going to be different from any other disease-demon you’ve had to kick in the teeth before now.

No, I’m not talking about the riot of side effects breast cancer treatment will brew (what you’ve read is brutally accurate: it is going to hurt, it is going to alter your flesh and feels, it is going to seriously suck for a while). This disease will change how you’ve always felt about certain social concepts (i.e., labels such as “breast cancer warrior”, wearing the pink ribbon).

Right now, you are wondering if calling oneself breast cancer warrior and wearing the pink ribbon are just fads, or symbolic ways to fight against something too ugly to face uncloaked. I’m writing this—three years after your breast died so that I could live—to share with you what I know now: I claim the label and wear the pink ribbon, because awareness is a caring weapon most warriors are grateful to share. I have also added a skull to the mix, as a reminder that even after our flesh is maimed or gone, at our core we’re as hard as bone, and will keep on grinning even after being stripped to the bone.

With a Whole Lot of Love (lively cackles, and at least 13 skulls),
Magaly

 

 One can’t stay sillily-serious for too long while wearing such a cool hat.

  - for Poets and Storytellers United--Weekly Scribblings #91: Personal Symbols (and Changes to P&SU).

Scars

On
my skin,
every scar tells
a story of struggles
survived.

 

- my hat and I had been doing some gardening, when I opened the door to receive a pharmacy delivery. I’m not sure if the delivery person was trying not to stare at my ginormous hat (maybe worried about not being able to escape its gravitational pull). Anyway, while trying to avoid the hat, the delivery person lowered their eyes, and their gaze landed on the not-so-wee scar left behind by my port-a-cath; and they totally froze, which is how I knew they were looking at the scar. To ease the tension, I said, “I got this one during a fight to the death. My enemy didn’t survive my ferocious chemical attacks.” The delivery person did not seem to care much for my chemotherapy jokes. Either that, or they were smiling deep, deep, really deep… under their mask. 🤔

- for Poets and Storytellers United --Weekly Scribblings #78: Micro-writings.

A Circle that Feeds Itself

Body image seems to be an unescapable topic after one has sacrificed a visible chunk to cancer. After months (or years) of breast cancer treatment, some bodies go through significant changes: hair grows back different (well, hello bald spots!), eyebrows are thin or nonexistent, there is weight gain or weight loss (I’m a member of the chunkalicious group right now), muscles and bones hurt, some immune systems never fully recover, vision and teeth are affected, scars itch and hurt and seem to multiply when one isn’t looking, some stop finding physical beauty in themselves, others feel betrayed by their bodies.

The last one I can’t quite understand. Your body is fighting a formidable disease and it’s still alive and kicking! So, where’s the betrayal? On my really bad days (when I’m feeling particularly ill), I do not resent my body. Instead, I show my body the most love. Not just because it makes sense to me, but also because love and laughter and such... fill the body with happy hormones.

So, when you are feeling like your body doesn’t love you enough, give it extra love—laugh with friends, go outside, exercise, have sex, do something pleasurable; love your body by giving it what it needs, and your body will love you back in the shape of endorphins, serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, will to live… Yep, love between body and self is a circle that feeds itself.

flesh and bones
always love you,
if you do

via

- for for Poets and Storytellers United--Writers’ Pantry #66: A Bat and a Haiku Walk into a Bar…