Breast Diaries 3

It just keeps floating
to the visible
Top of my consciousness
Beethoven symphony 7
Second movement
That’s the kind of gloomy I feel.

Les Misrables was great!
I cried all the way through, fabulous release
I can feel a bout of over eating coming on
Just anything to numb the pain.

Seven hours of solid paperwork
Just anything to completely absorb myself in
Food
Pinterest
Weepy movie
Work.

Anything so I don’t have to think
About this left breast
Numb
Absorb
Deaden
Suffocate
Stuff down
Suppress
Stamp down
Tamp
Insulate.

All these things
I’m cotton-wooling my mind
I’m bubble wrapping my emotions
Because it is weird, it is hard and it is so, so scary.

All the ifs and buts and two whole weeks to wait
Am I fine?
Am I ok?
No I’m not ok
I’m starting arguments
I’m hypercritical
I’m prickly
I’m lashing out

I will be gone, they will continue
I have to keep saying that to myself
because it’s true
and because I’ve never thought it before.
And it takes a bit of getting used to.

Complete the action.
And for me too
My rage and anger at what is going on is not to be expressed out loud
But keeps passing across my face
Like an unstoppable tidal wave
And people - unexpectedly catch glimpses of the under tow.

It takes too long to realize that my face is not right – not composed
I have to fix my face into the right expression,
but it just takes a heartbeat too long.

Masks
Slipped masks
And I only realize when I see reactions like a mirror in others.

A morning on my own in the office doing paperwork
Surprised by a student 
and he whom I don’t know very well at all 
could see my face wasn’t right.

You know- it’s too distracting
It’s too heavy to carry alone
I can’t do it, I really can’t

help me
Carry my emotions lightly.


Images: Maes Howe, Orkney


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