Damn

My original diagnosis of lung cancer, around Thanksgiving in 2018, did not correspond with a big increase in traffic to this blog. At the time, my blog had even fewer followers than it does today. Reading the posts, today, that I wrote back then is a bit like stumbling onto a secret few people shared. That was so long ago. The world has since changed in unimaginable ways. An ugly place has become worse.  A grim future has begun to take shape, replacing unpleasant possibilities with increasingly strong likelihoods. These days, my desire to remain “positive” feels quaint and stupid—as if I am attempting to cling to misguided delusions that can occupy only the mind of an idiot. In fact, I do not know just what to expect, neither with regard to substance nor with respect to time. Does one feel a growing weakness, or is the sensation more like a decline in strength? I doubt the two are synonymous, though they must be similar to one another. Despite having had my hair cut very short within the last few weeks, my sudden experience with significant loss of the hair that’s left surprises me. Clumps of hair appear to be unable to remain connected to their roots, dropping thin grey globs of hair mixed with strands of what used to be hair that’s no  longer there. I try to express my silly confusion with whimsical verse. Instead, I think the effort falls (or fails) like follicles. It’s almost 10:00 A.M., yet today’s blog-birth has yet to come to fruition. My thoughts remain scrambled; not yet congealed. Like eggs—beaten but not exposed to heat. More than six minutes have passed. Still, though, the eggs remain runny and cool. If I had time and patience, I could make replicas of feathers, using only beaten eggs and whisps of hair. I do have enough time, I think, but my patience is inadequate. My willingness to endure falls short of what’s required to construct wings. Why, I wonder, do I feel pain where I feel pain? Are the feathers’ quills stabbing me, or is there something else trying to cause me to erupt in a violent outburst against intrusive attacks on what’s left of my serenity? If I could launch missiles with a touch of my finger, I might introduce massive explosions to this quiet neighborhood…but it’s not really so quiet. The sounds of an ambulance punctured the solitude a few minutes ago. Damn.

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