Chemotherapy
I wanted to showcase what a blog entry became. This poem was several revisions from a first ramblings about my experience with chemo. I am excited for people to see what revision does for your work. I am sure I still have more tightening to do on this poem but its already come a long way!!
Chemotherapy
The sights, sounds and smells
continually plague me.
The machines with their IV’s
invite- me into your treatment
With their steady,
Drip, drip, drip…….
Beating to the rhythm of my heart
Becoming the lonesome ballad,
Intruder the Caregiver’s Song
There are ghosts here and
You dear, have become one of them.
I watch you resting in your hospital chair,
The nurse comes in
And you reach out your arm,
Both of you make small talk,
While all I can hear is the
Drip, drip, drip….
Of the machine
The nurse inspects your arm
Seeing which vein he will take
Sharpness, slight sting,
The needle starting the cycle again.
And then it comes, washing over me
I am greeted by
The stench of death and flesh,
Latex, chemicals, sickness
And your illness. I want to vomit.
I look over at you.
Your color, is tinged with yellow;
And reminds me of a stain on dirty bed sheets.
You look unfamiliar.
I steady myself, and breath in.
I look around grasping for familiarity but all I see
Are rows of perfectly shaped heads
Framing what is known as oncology.
All of them bald.
White, pale white, doughy white and
offset by sunken eyes, red rimmed,
Colored by the chemicals from the machines
Drip, drip, drip….
I wish I were braver.
I want to run away but I can’t leave you here.
You and the nurse
Shot the shit, as he
Administers the poison, they say is saving you.
I admire your strength and patience as
I tap my foot and notice
Its beating to the drip, drip, drip
Of the machine.
Hours have gone by and I know your treatment is almost over.
As you have grown tired now,
Wrappers of candy strewn around your chair,
Pale face, you whisper something to me that is inaudible
And I pretend to know what you say.
I am handed your check -out form.
I get a tiny card, confirmation we will be
Doing this again, unfortunately, too soon.
Drip, drip, drip…. We leave.
Tick, tick, tick
Time has a new sense of direction
You seem tiny now, a shell of the man I brought in
Me and you we make our escape.
We will meet here again
In two weeks. In our stench.
our unmistakable vulnerabilities,
in our naked realities,
We will hear again-the drip, drip, drip—drumming the pain further in.
We will meet here again,
Same place, we will fall silent
Unable to communicate
the differences this makes in our relationship
And I will add another verse to my song.
It is excruciating. I have never gotten use to it. Not the sight, smells or sounds. The machine and it’s steady, in and out and drip, drip, drip. It beats with my heart but my heart wants to stop beating. I take it in, I breathe it out. I want to vomit.
Everyone looks the same here. Everyone looks like death. I am not being hateful, but it’s true. Everyone is pale with a tinge of yellow, well; the exception being some have a green tint which haunts me more.
Nobody has hair. The eyes are red and sunken. Everyone looks uniform. There is no gender, there is no description, except they all have cancer.
There is no avoiding the aversion to the smell. The stench greets you and it’s a mix of illness, latex, newness and poison. Sometimes there is the hint of food and that is when my stomach, flips over and over; backwards forwards–flips. It continues to flip.
I come in to be the observer, the visitor in this disturbing place. I feel unwelcome. Not because these people don’t want me here but because I don’t belong. I have color. I am not sick. I do not represent cancer. My body isn’t poisoned. I feel like I should strip myself bare to meet you here.
I can’t smile. I can’t find the happiness, as the odor penetrates me. I can’t find my soul, as I witness people lose theirs. I make myself smile, force myself to smile. It hurts but what hurts more is seeing you in that chair.
They all sit seated with IVs, TVs, guests, magazines, and there it is the persistent drip, drip, drip. And the machines—the beep, it screams at you; the machine it beeps and drips. And silently, I scream get me the hell out of here. Then I look at you, I see your life coming out in each beep, in each drip, in each one of my silent screams, I see the life beating out of you.
My heart swells with shame. I don’t want to be here and yet, it’s you that is stuck in the chair. I think of all the excuses that excuse me from sitting still. I can run an errand, get you a tea, or some candy; anything not to sit still, with the steady drip, drip, drip. I remain uncomfortable the entirety of treatment; unwelcomed, disoriented, a foreigner in this place that I have come to know too well.
I admire your patience, as you chat with the nurse. I admire your strength, as you put up a good fight. I don’t admire myself, as I see this selfish person—who can’t sit still, who doesn’t want to be inside this place, who wants to run away. I can’t admire me because I lack your bravery.
We make it to the end with the steadiness of the drip, drip, drip. The hours of our life, sucked away through an IV. My head lost in the screams that get stuck inside my throat, tightening the pain that gets stuck in my chest. I need a release. There remains none.
You are weaker now. It doesn’t even wait until we are gone to take you from me. It doesn’t even wait until we exit the building. It takes you and I leave a piece behind.
It never fails, I cry. I cry because I hate it! I cry because it challenges me! I cry because it’s unfair! I cry because I can’t take it! I cry because I wish I was braver! I cry because I lose my soul mate.
And then the guilt sinks in. God, the guilt sinks itself deep in me, sending me further in the dark roars of my cry, further into the abyss of my hurt. I walk past you. You walk past me.
T
here is now a ghost beside me. A shell of the man I knew. I draw in a deep breath. I wait, patiently. I become frustrated.
The ghost beside me reaches for my hand but never makes it over. You lay back. I drive.
It remains complicated. I remain silent, how can I rid you of this pain? The waves of how tos come, steady like the drip, drip, drip of the machine. The tears wash away my focus and we both surrender to the dance around each other that we have been learning to move to.
Cautiously, we dance, avoiding all the emotions, as if they might swallow us whole; as if, it might require something that neither of us knows.
We escape. We will meet here next time. In two weeks, as we do it all over again. As we avoid, what cannot be avoided and succumb to the machine. We will meet here again, in our stench. In our unmistakable vulnerabilities, in our naked realities, we will meet again-the drip, drip, drip—drumming the pain further in. We will meet here again, same place and we will fall silent unable to communicate the differences this makes in our relationship.
Charlie.
I’m commenting to say I am speachless.
I’m drawn in w/ you in this you endure, tho I do not belong anywhere near You & your heart’s world.
I ache to express love to you and yours
Tho I am have nothing to offer but feeble, distant, unqualified words
From a speachless heart
As unsuited for the likes of you guys as the intruder itself.
This one thing I know to be true and can say:
Beauty prevails despite the mischief of evil to dispell her entirely
And no beauty has ever been manifested so radiant
As the beauty of you and yours
Your beauty in your courage
Your beauty in your grace
Your beauty in your love of life
Your beauty in your love of one another
Your prevailing beauty in the most unpleasant of days of your lives
Your beauty today.