Hold off, Death, I say, Not for me today, Not for the immediate future.
I walk away healthy from the cancer clinic. I walk away healthy from the X-ray plate, from the MRI tube, from my blood in a vial, from my cells on a slide.
And the clinics and the patients and the nurses and doctors, so long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye. I might as well climb over a mountain. I might as well ford a rocky stream.
It is delicious to depend on nobody but myself. Not the good doctors who do their best in trying circumstances. Not the bad doctors whose incomprehension or neglect is enough to scramble my brains and my guts. Not the doctors with the god complexes who want me to cry like a child and cling to them as if I were a lapel pin made of corrupt flesh.
Here I am pointing my toes, swiveling my hips, giving the middle finger to anyone who tries to control me or mow me down.
I have autonomy. I police my own boundaries.
I grant only a chosen few permission to touch. My heart is a beacon surrounded by swords. It thrives in opening its doors and shutting its windows, a selective queen, puzzled and amused by her choices.
