I wrote this one a while back but for whatever reason didn’t publish it.
—————-
when you’re gone
i can’t see your face
but
when i hear your voice
it makes my heart lift
and when you enter the room
sometimes i forget to breathe
and the smell of you
your weight against me
the feel of you in my arms
means home
but
when you’re gone
i can’t see your face
CN: cancer
Another cancer patient once asked me if I was grateful I’d gotten cancer. The answer is definitely no, but. There’s that but, that’s the problem.
There are lots of ways I could divide my life: pre and post moving to the UK, for example. Pre and post various traumas. Pre and post disability. Pre and post coming out. But cancer definitely changed my life in a sudden and obvious way, and so that’s how I divide my life these days: before I had cancer, and since.
I’ve written before about how getting cancer changed my outlook on life. I’m now almost five years out from finding my lump, and my life is very different to how it was before.
Different in good ways, and in bad.
The bad is mostly health-related: my chemo fatigue never went away, and all my other conditions got a little bit worse post-chemo.
The good is a lot of things: new friends, closer family relationships, partway through transitioning, working out the rest of my identities. Getting my autism diagnosis. Regular-ish blogging/writing, even. I’m getting better at setting boundaries, at knowing my limits. I feel more me than I think I ever have.
I’d never say I was glad I got cancer, but there have definitely been some positives that have come out of that whole experience. Would I have preferred to have had the positives without the cancer? Obviously, but it is what it is, and getting cancer definitely gave me the push I needed to take steps to improve my life.
So, to answer the question at the top, I’m not grateful for the cancer, but I acknowledge there were some beneficial effects. I just wish I could have had the personal epiphanies without the cancer.
What have I read this week?
This is a collection of short stories. I’m not sure how I feel about this one. They didn’t quite gel for me, and I found some of them a bit too dark. I probably wouldn’t read more by this author.
The world is too much, and routines make it just enough. Safe enough, quiet enough, just enough, but break my routine and the muchness comes back, overwhelming, exhausting.
My life might seem boring, but it keeps me safe, stable, functional. Wear the same things, eat the same things, do the same things. Even the variations are routine: do this thing on this day, this week, this month.
Spontaneity is… difficult. I need to work myself up to socialising, and too much anything is tiring. And the world is lights sounds people, and sometimes I can’t. Sometimes the anxiety I always thought was impatience is too much, and I know it seems rude but I just have to get out away NOW.
Sometimes my feelings leap up into my throat and choke me into silence. Other times it’s all I can do not to scream. Sometimes other people make my skin itch. Some days I just can’t, and yet I have to, have to get up and get dressed and go to work and people all day, and when I get home I’m done. Some weeks all I can do is work, and it takes everything to manage that.
And it’s hard to explain, hard to say that today all my energy is going into being good at my job, and I don’t have any left to be polite with. That I’m not chatting because I can’t, not because I dislike you or because I’m angry, I. Just. Can’t.
Sometimes I want to crawl into a dark corner, under a table, and just hide. Just be away from everyone. But I can’t, I don’t. I have to go to work and be productive even when it hurts. Even when it means I go home and I’m too exhausted to do anything. When it means I buy crap from the corner shop to eat because I can’t even manage to think about cooking, never mind actually do it.
This is how the world is. I have to fit to it, because it won’t fit to me. This is how the world is, and I hate it. I hate how hard it is, how hard it insists on being, even when it could be easier, could be better. I hate that I get to be the one with the problem, when the problem is other people’s expectations.
(Not entirely, of course, but a lot of it boils down to people expect certain things from you, which they never fucking explain, but they definitely judge the hell out of you if you fail to meet them.)
And I’m tired. I’m tired of having to fake normal, I’m tired of people saying one thing and meaning another and assuming that I’m doing the same, I’m tired of having to hold it together until I get home and I can fall apart safely.
I’m tired, and I’m angry, and I want it to get better, I just don’t know how. Which I guess is why I’m writing this post. To get it out, and maybe someone else will get something from this. But mostly because I can’t keep it in any more.
I’m autistic, and I’m angry, because the world sucks in ways that it doesn’t have to. Because I keep failing the tests that I don’t even know other people are setting. Because I’m pissed off that people keep acting like being different is a moral failing, and it’s not. Different is different, it’s not wrong.
I’m angry, because making eye contact and small talk are considered to be deeply meaningful skills, and I have to spend too many of my spoons on trying to remember to do these, and how often, and how much, and when (not if) I fail, I’ll be judged. I’m angry because I’m supposed to give you the benefit of the doubt, but yet I never get that. I’m angry because the world is not fair, but I have a deep need for it to be so.
I’m angry because I’m always the one who’s supposed to change. I’m angry because my first instinct is to be open and honest so I always get taken advantage of. I’m angry because I’m always wrong, difficult, weird.
I’m angry because sometimes I just can’t, but I have to anyway.
But mostly, I’m angry because I want it to be better, and it isn’t.
This month’s word is cold, meaning “having a relatively low temperature; having little or no warmth”, “feeling an uncomfortable lack of warmth; chilled”, “the relative absence of heat”, or “the sensation produced by loss of heat from the body, as by contact with anything having a lower temperature than that of the body”.
This is late, but I’m catching up!
————–
I really thought it would be colder. I mean, it’s cold, no doubt about it, but I was expecting something more extreme. I mean, they call it an ice planet for a reason, right?
I know it’s an odd choice for a holiday, but I don’t like the heat, and I’ve done gas giants and asteroid belts already. But it’s just been… underwhelming.
I guess I was expecting amazing ice canyons or something, but this is just kind of flat. I suppose the 8000 km/hr winds might have something to do with that. Maybe I should’ve chosen a different planet.
It’s just been a disappointing holiday, that’s all. I haven’t been able to land, due to the aforementioned wind, so I’m just looking at it. And the trip here was kind of long and boring.
I guess I’ll leave a bad review; this is not what I was led to believe it would be. That’s what I get for trusting my cousin’s mate’s sister’s friend’s travel agency. Never again. Next time I’ll plan it myself.
What have I read this week? It’s late, sorry!
This is a fantasy novel about a teenage girl named Alice, who discovers a world of Nightmares and magic after her father’s death. I enjoyed this. Alice is an interesting character, and I liked this twist on Wonderland. I would read more by this author.
It’s been a while since I posted a new poem. Well, what can I say? 2020 happened, and so did 2021. I haven’t felt that poetic. I started this one last year, but only really think it’s finished now.
the world is burning
and I’m choking on it
rage and grief clogging my throat
the taste of ash
and the urge to scream
fight in my mouth
mixing into furious tears
I feel too much to speak
words tangle inside me
and only silence emerges
just because I cannot speak
does not mean I do not feel
do not care
do not rage
do not despair
my silence is angry too
This month’s word is fruit, meaning “any product of plant growth useful to humans or animals”, “anything produced or accruing; product, result, or effect; return or profit” or “to bear or cause to bear fruit”.
It’s very late, I know. I’m hoping to be up to date by the end of the year.
————–
I’m so hungry, but there’s nothing but fruit available. Piles of crunchy apples, bright oranges, furry brown kiwi fruit, bananas turning from yellow to brown, a mixed bowl of raspberries, blueberries and blackberries. So many options, and I hate all of them.
Fruit. It sucks, and yet they buy nothing else for me, in the vain hope that I’ll give in and eat some due to my growing hunger.
But they underestimate my hatred of fruit, my stubbornness and my hunger-fueled ingenuity. You won’t catch me eating fruit. I’d rather eat the rats I hear scratching in the walls. I’d eat nettles, spinach, sprouts before I’d let a banana touch these lips.
And yet, fruit.
Everywhere, fruit.
So. Much. Fruit.
They say it’s good for me, but I say it’s gross, disgusting, horrible. None for me, thanks, I say, and wave it away.
I hope (I hope!) I can outlast them, that they give in before I do, because I just. Hate. Fruit.
But here they come with more fruit, as if these will tempt me where all others have failed. I suppose they have to say they’ve tried.
I wish they’d just bring me a carrot.
This month’s word is sleepy, meaning “ready or inclined to sleep; drowsy”, “of or showing drowsiness”, “languid; languorous”, “lethargic; sluggish”, “quiet” or “inducing sleep; soporific”.
It’s very late, I know. I’m sorry.
————–
I’m so tired all the time, always sleepy, eyes drifting closed every time I sit, or even if I just slow down.
A slow heaviness presses me down, turning air to mud, an effort to walk, speak, breathe.
I can’t remember the time before. Was there a time before? My brain works slowly, badly; thoughts slip away almost before they’re finished. I can’t recall, can’t think, can’t… I just can’t.
I’m forgetting things, my fingers fumbling with actions I’ve done a million times. I stumble over nothing, my feet forgetting to lift from the floor.
I want it to stop. I want to wake up, and feel awake, alert, refreshed. I want to feel anything but this exhaustion.
But it just goes on, and on. I… Is this it, forever? Please, let it get better. Let the fog lift, even if just for a day. Please.
What have I read this week? Nothing, again.
Random Ramblings 