Inspired by the incredible Cordelia Feldman and her novel In Bloom, for sale now. For World Cancer Day.
It would be easy to say
I haven’t been stricken because I couldn’t cope with it
there would be no one, I have learned, if I were;
not a flower garden, or brothers with curry, or kind lipsticked nurses
socialized healthcare, or odd private room
there would not be a mom bathing or a dad talking
about vegetable garden and the latest episode of Silent Witness
who could really cope?
Even as I say this, knowing the avocado heart of it
I also know I could be stricken tomorrow, or already
as all of us could
(as all of us could)
and privately in a fat second
(like when you see a train wreck and you process a hundred thoughts all at once)
I know I have my will written (handwritten, badly, not rubber stamped)
ready to mail to fate should it come.
When I got sick, though not C.A.N.C.E.R.S.I.C.K., nevertheless I really planned
taking another way out
in my head, thoughts of how bad it had become, lead to imaginings
of suicide and how savage that is to hear
for someone who is dying and does not want to die
the ingratitude of the well
these thoughts fly around me
like bees unwilling yet to sting
my heart is heavy for her
wondering selfishly what I would do
had I the same burden
praying to an empty sky, for that not to happen
superstitious that even the mere wish not to be sick
evokes it
as if fate were laughing and throwing darts
at fleeing people
so helpless, we sink our teeth into projects
wind up time like a ball of yarn
knit it into shapes we can understand
all while keeping horror at bay
the imagined car crash, the loved one never returning home
a cancer growing inside like a whistle
on a hurtling train
it is easy to not find time for empathy
or to feel, it is too close, too raw, too impossible
to process
most of all I think of her grace
how she can appreciate something like a child might
I think of her humor
how she’s had me folded on the floor laughing at the
sheer fucking brilliance of her
I am proud in ways that hurt
she’s everything I am not and she’s also
deeply human
if one person says ‘I’m sorry for your loss‘ I will
scream; “She’s not gone yet! She’s never
going to be gone, that’s just not how
she rolls. Don’t underestimate her
don’t think you own her anymore
than you own your own life.“
Those platitudes are all we sometimes have
we mean them more
than scrolling past someone’s bad news
crossing ourselves, as we step over graves
one day slated to be ours
we side step death like the dancers we are
thinking we’re somehow avoiding
something born before we were
and I focus and think of her
how if I could show her my feelings
they would be in movement, in laughter
in light, spinning like an electric waterfall
like her spinning class, where just for a moment
she is that girl beneath the hot trance lights of
the 90’s and I am dancing along side her
as the earth holds us both, alive
despite any ‘support’ she has
which I am more glad of than anything
though what support does against terror?
I cannot lend a description to
my own failings in the courage department
planning my demise when the first meteorite hit
although I read we use meteorite and meteor and astroid
interchangably
and they are actually very different
with only the burning of the sun
in common to collease
their strength as potential planet killers
my math teacher used to say
a morbid mind will only bring sorrow
of course she was right
in her Laura Ashley dungerees
that would now be worth $300 on Ebay
a funny ole world my grandma prosthelytized
nipping at the ever full box of wine in the kitchen
clipping her rose garden when ABBA wasn’t
sufficient to propel demons
I get it
I really do
there’s only avoidance really
we can’t look into the sun too long
we’ll lose our sight before
we’ve made our way back from the garden
or maybe
we’ll stay, our heads upturned
soaking in the rays
To dearest Cordelia, I adore you.
Please consider purchasing Cordelia’s first novel In Bloom, it is magnificent.
TheFeatheredSleep 