benign

(before you read this, i'm just going to ramble.  my school is really involved in the cops for cancer campaign, and we went from raisin 16, 000 our first year, to 52, 000 last year, and 84, 000 this year, and still counting.  this was the first year i attended the headshave, and it was an incredibly emotional experience for me.  multiple people in my life have been lost to/affected by the demon that is cancer.  these were generally just my thoughts during the hour i spent in the gym, watching many students, including a large amount of beautiful, beautiful young women shedding their hair in memory of the ones they'd lost, the battles they'd fought, and the connections they'd had.  i'll be shaving my head next year, and while i'm extremely nervous, i know it's the right thing to do.  when the time comes around, let me know if you'd like to pledge me.)
(side note- this is still really first draft and rambly.  editing it, so there will be newer, more structured copies, eventually.)



today, i remember my grandmother.
her death was 13 hours before my premature birth,
and i believe that the fingers that once graced my mothers stomach daily
left a residue of their bodys pain.
believe the shock was enough to throw her into labor,
enough to throw me into a newly empty world.

so i remember always looking at my current grandparents,
in waiting
in wishing she could forever hold the title of "in-law"
and never grandmother.  never relative.
every time my grandfather remarries, he passes on her hurting like a re-gifted ring.
and i've come to discover that you're the type of demon
that tends to stick to certain family's.

remember how science class tells me that rapidly splitting cells is not contagious,
but lately, i think my late relatives and yourself would beg to differ.
you see, the only thing that has never differed in my family
is disease.

today i remember the last call i ever got from my mother.
i took this news with ease and a dose of surprise,
realize that your annual visit to our tribe was well overdue.
remember saying 'goodbye', and expecting it to be the last.
everything you did to us in the past was only practice for our future presents.

today, is a day of realizations.
a day of regret, remorse, remembrance and change.

i feel the tears on their eyes and decide
that instead of wearing fear like a shield,
i will never skip a doctor's appointment.

feel the hair beneath my toes and decide
that expectancy will, today, turn into me being ready.

embrace every skull i see
with the understanding

that someday, you are coming to get me.
but i will not let you take me by surprise.
scraping the pain from my mothers stomach,
and grandma's ring,
and every memory of loved ones i have,
and paint it onto my flesh.
in preperation.

i will clear the hair from my neck,
and welcome you to take a bite.
my skin so full poison and my blood so full of lethal spite.
come and get me.
i am ready
with war paint of your own medicine,
come and get your taste.

i will not drop my guns,
i will not drop my defences.
i will not drop the pictures of my lost ones,
or forget the sound of my grandmothers singing.
the sound of the silence ringing.

together, as a hurting nation,
we will join hands,
we will join skulls,
we will join together in our hurt, join together in our loss, join together in our anger and make it clear,
as truthful as a gymnasium of bald skulls,

you will not beat us, cancer.
we will not let you beat us, cancer.
you cannot beat us.