Inevitable Season
Charts of accumulated inches, photos of cars stranded, maps made beautifully daunting with colors, coded to show who’s got it worst fill our news feed and our consciousness. Even when our window shows only a dusting of snow and our own commutes are perfectly manageable, these images from elsewhere negate what we are actually experiencing, instead clouding our minds with fear that we will be next, that our data will be added to the charts, that we will become the next headline.
Day 35/35
In preparation for these 35 days,
we revised our Health Care Directive,
we crafted our will,
we made no plans beyond April.
That’s how poor the odds were.
What Makes Him Rare
I want to tell them that it is true,
that he IS unlike anyone they have ever treated or read about,
but that his exceptionality has little to do with the way his DNA fails to repair itself after injury.
I Feel It All
My previously thick skin has been worn down by the traumas we’ve endured.
As if each trip to the doctor brought with it a round of exfoliation
via steel wool.
Only a thin membrane covers me now,
one that is fully permeable to everything in my radius.
Holding Pattern
We are:
Holding the weight of this diagnosis on our shoulders and our souls,
Holding the doctors and researchers accountable to do their jobs, even and especially in this most complicated case,
Holding our breath that all will go well,
Holding out hope that he will defy statistics,
Isn’t That Enough?
I glare at the beautifully manicured sidewalks of neighbors,
scraped clean by snow removal services, snow blowers, or healthy husbands,
of which I have none.
The Game of Life
One floor below, but in close enough range to hear every spin and every shriek, a different Game of Life is playing out.
SPIN “You got Fanconi anemia!”
SPIN “You got throat cancer!”
SPIN “It’s inoperable!”
It’s Cancer. Again.
We are in an especially heinous type of purgatory at the moment.
We know the cancer is there. We have shiny pictures to prove it.
We don’t yet know how extensive its reach is.
We don’t yet know the plan
How fiery the hell we’re about to walk into will be.
Storms are Coming
I know that it only takes one storm to wipe out a town.
Our current ten-day forecast calls for five.
Tightrope
He knows his tightrope is both shorter and thinner than most,
that its length has been truncated and its width frayed to a tiny thread,
making each step treacherous and full of potential peril.
