I didn’t want to be here, facing it.
The spot on the xray is glaring, bright white, angrily testifying the treatment to follow. I’m sad for what’s been sapped, for this ache that will only get worse through excise. Can I get a morphine drip, please? This feels like iodine, swabbing down sternum, rattling my cage.
I’m scrubbing in, but my hand doesn’t feel any cleaner, and I can’t stop myself – I keep looking at the phone on the wall, waiting for the call saying scans were mixed up
(I don’t mean that, I wouldn’t wish this purgatory on anyone)
that malignancy was someone else’s
(couldn’t we just use radiation? I’ll puke for weeks on chemo, if that’s what it takes. Maybe my hair will fall out and grow back in, straight and soft and lively, and we’ll be in remission)
that it was just a persistent cough
(it hurts to breathe)
.
It’s not angiosarcoma, but it feels like a stage-three diagnosis.
I’m going under, counting myself backwards from 10
which might be going forward, if you really think about it – who’s to say?
but all this mask is giving me are ketamine dreams of what if and never more.
* I don’t have cancer, yo. I’m being artsy or morbid or metaphorical or poetic or something.
why is it that you can’t go two days without bitching at me? i know i nagged you to clean up after yourself when you just wanted to go to bed. that was selfish of me. i mean, i do only spend most of my free time cleaning up (after you, zoë, the cat and me, in that order). i would really like more shit to pick up. really. especially while you’re potentially sound asleep. that would be fair.
am i over-reacting and you’ll just do it later, maybe when you get out of bed in the morning? i really strongly feel that you’ll get out of bed and this is what you’ll accomplish: spilling coffee on the kitchen counter, dropping ashes on the window ledge, leaving pajama pants and/or boxers on the bathroom knob, throwing whatever garbage you have in your jeans and/or backpack on the desk or counter or floor or coffee table, not flushing the toilet, leaving a lunch-making mess on the counter if i don’t make it for you, leaving your coffee cup in front of the computer or if it makes it into the kitchen leaving it at the side of the sink, with a half cup of coffee still in it, and then to add the icing to the cake, if i’m still in bed, leaving without saying goodbye.
you accomplish so much in a one hour period.
please, i really need more reasons to resent you. and since i have all of these reasons, you can be a good guy and clean up your fucking mess before you go to bed with no fucking notice before the baby wakes up so maybe you won’t have to fucking deal with her.
i am so fucking tired of hearing that you’re tired. you know what? get over it. think you’re going to sleep regularly for a while? think that the sooner you go to bed, the more sleep you’ll get? think that every time she cries in the night and i see you cover your ears with a pillow or blanket or get up to have a smoke it doesn’t make me loathe you just a little more? think it’s fair that you don’t have to feed her? ever? how many time have you, anyways? um, under 10. since she was born?! the introduction of bottles was your cue.
oh, you need your sleep so you can work the next day. i don’t need the sleep – i only have a six month old’s life to protect and foster. migraines, lack of patience, nodding off – those all are completely cool, enjoyable and safe. as long as you can be as well rested as possible on a work day. no wait, every day.
we had this talk the other night. things we fight about and what would make the problems go away. i thought we came to some good conclusions. i think at least part of you thinks so, too. or was that just getting it while it was possible?
where you’re putting me… think you’re trapped in a marriage with a kid for life? i wasn’t bullshitting when i said that i wasn’t going to take much more of this and that if you didn’t have the balls to leave then i would and it would not be with a giant goodbye. there’d be no tearful conversation. there’d be no prearranged issuance. it’d just be. and you’re driving me to it, more and more every second day.
i’ve never been a leaver. i’ve been a “get the fuck out. no wait, i changed my mind, please don’t leave me” cry-er. but i’ll die before i let you fuck up our daughter with your thinly veiled animosity. think she won’t notice? that you’re a good actor? yeah, right. just like you’re a good boyfriend.
i never wanted my boyfriend back. i haven’t liked that guy for a few years. i wanted my best friend back and it seems that he’s moved away. so only the boyfriend remains.
the outside world has this perception of you. devoted, caring, friendly, concerned. it makes me wish that i was a smaller part of the world you live in, so i could live with that unreality.
i see a person who rushes home from work to take care of his family (so he won’t get nagged about being late, can drink, can get the baby to bed sooner and smoke a joint). this person occasionally says thank you for something out of gratitude (that i won’t later say “oh, by the way you’re welcome for me making dinner, your lunch and doing your laundry while washing the dishes that you didn’t rinse off”). he gets affectionate (when he wants to get fucked and knows it’s a sure thing, or not, but will still complain about not getting it later). he shares how he feels with me (at a hundred decibels, while telling me how i’m ruining his life, depressing him, driving him to drink and making him want to leave. but he won’t ever leave cuz it would fuck up the baby and he doesn’t want to be that kind of father, who takes off. uhuh. let’s fuck her up by staying and living with constant tension). he contributes to the housework (only by prearrangement, in lieu of some favour and/or after being asked three or more times). he waits patiently for me to finish talking (and rolls his eyes at how uninteresting it is when zoë slept, peed and pooped and how much of what she ate). he asks me how my day was because he knows that just cuz i’m zoë’s mom and here all day, it’s not entirely all about her – we’re separate individuals (um no, he did that for a few days, after i screamed it at him. then he forgot. cuz i’m that important).
this person thinks we don’t have enough sex and that’s true. this person doesn’t try to set the mood. this person dives into the mood and expects me to be able to flick the switch on, like i could a year and a half ago, before i got pregnant and drank and smoked pot all day when cocaine was an aphrodisiac, not a potential vacation.
before there were responsibilities and a baby waking up and bottles to be washed, rinsed, sterilized, filled and fed. and no time to shave and shower and bookkeeping to do and clothes to be laundered and oh yeah. a fucking scar on my fucking vagina that makes sex feel like a rope burn at best. occasionally, a little pain goes a long (good) way. but for the most part it doesn’t. for the most part, it’s terrifying. for the most part it’s too fucking hard to do all of this. for the most part i am falling apart while keeping it all happy and wonderful. for the most part, trying to save you has destroyed me and for the most part i sometimes hate you and wish you would just hit the fucking bottom so that you can fucking clean your shit up instead of thinking you’re doing good cuz you’re not doing that bad.
you can’t expect me to be the person i was, how i was before, if you’re not even willing to acknowledge that that person exists.
to make it clearer: i exist. pay attention to me and pretend to like me. then i can comfortably go back to being your doormat.
