Friday, February 19, 2010

The C word

I've been reluctant to write about this.

Maybe because that would make it real or because it's just too damn scary. I have low grade, beginning stages of cervical cancer. I was free and clear for the last year and in the last month it's reared it's ugly little head again.

I'm not scared of leaving this body. I fear the hurt it would bring the people I love but I have no fear for myself. But I don't think that's really an option for me with this. It's early and highly monitored. I do fear of falling so far into debt that I can't crawl out. That I won't be able to buy my next house. That I couldn't get a loan for my next business. That if I get married, I would hurt my husbands credit.

I am still on COBRA but only until September then I'm on my own. It's so expensive that I've been selling some clothes and other household items to collect enough for the monthly payment. It's at these moments when I'm writing out the checks to my old boss, that prick, that I consider crazy thing.

Like when I drive past the local strip joint, I do consider it for half a moment. Making a thousand dollars on a Saturday night... that would pay off my medical lab bills and then some... I know why desperate women get married. I know why they sell their hair and blood. But that's not me. Not yet at least.

But it does make me think about people and the choices they make. The girl sucking on the stripper pole, whores on the corner, pushers, the desperate people out there. Maybe they didn't have a choice. Work at McDonalds for 7.50 an hour and still can't make rent or hit the street and feed yourself and pay rent and heat your place.

It's all a lesson in being less judgmental on my part. It's a lesson I needed to learn. And here I am, humble, broke and a better person. And happier.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

A little V-day poem...

This boy, so faint in his intention, has black toes and bloody heart soaked in fed fire, hidden love.
He bothers to pluck his strings.

Fluorescent and incandescent, tearful and beautiful, fluttering bodies fill his lines, cleft between the head and his soul, trembling with what she said but no time to tell her.

And bated breath, turn sigh, non-truth to lie, he could keep riding and learn to get by. Electric eyes and a silver mind and tongue, neon bright.

This boy, his intention clearer, has black toes and bloody heart. He's filled with fire but spilling love, plucking her strings boldly. Standing up and facing right, they all feel it radiating, the light, the heat , the touch and the release.

Followed home, laying it down, all in one, the one is all and everything.