Slow Air

The truth of a trip is that friendship can develop cancer over time.

Don’t you know, have you heard of its disease?

It changes and begins to grow out of control. And then it turns into a tumor, affecting different areas of your heart.

It’s also about loss too. Everything is, even morality.

Reflecting and thinking, swinging and smoking, I trade in stories. I can curate and pass, prove, and twist to show that I was who I was.

I am who I am. And I want to stay where I can remain. That I can breathe and it be okay. That I can be open, honest, fluid, and in despair.

I saw what I saw, I felt what I felt.

I’m starting to realize the rabbit hole of a full circle– of a full moon.

I want to be a good person. I’d like to think I’m a good person. But I don’t like listening to Daniel Cesar and my once-in-a-while guy drives too slow.

I’m good at feeling fury toward a person or a memory. There is a lot of thrill that runs through me like a bright blue current. But also there's a light pink coral reef just below the surface of my anger and sadness.

But the thing is, I haven’t been sad. I write like I am, but truthfully I am not.

I’m swell. Is that a word? Is it the right tense? I am so full of the people I love. I gesture boldly and stand up a little tall when they’re around. Why do I write? Why do I tell and kiss? Why am I running away to Rome, hoping and ceasing to exist?

Is it for my writer’s block? Is it for the insane and broken?

Perhaps it’s for myself or for my two sisters who I love more than I’ll ever say.

Why am I a storyteller? Or a blogger?

This I don’t know.

But I can sense and confess that it’s my personal fight. I do it against forgetting.

Cancer worries me. I feel it in my stomach, in the pit of my peach.

Worry and blame feel like a disintegration of the self.

Everything I know is concentrated into a single-pack cookie of obsession. You change, grow, twist, and speed.

But there are little victories for when you’re sick.

Like learning and realizing what kinds of leave-in conditioner work best for the curls, you’ve suppressed for years. Or what kind of Greek yogurt you enjoy, if any? I like watching myself change and I want to be touched. I don’t need scrutiny.

I like sriracha and broccoli in my pasta, and it took me until this afternoon to crave nothing but my mom’s cooking.

I understand why I got angry in that one conversation two years ago and I’m unraveling all the mysteries inside me that he had yet to meet. But the memories are like a melody and it won’t leave my head. Because the scars of his are still mine. I learned that if you chase two girls you’ll only end up with one.

I might forgive it, but I won’t forget it. I thought I told you before.

I like receiving flowers without an apology and I know now more than ever that it was supposed to be this way.

I’m trying to get cured, without trying to hate the process. And I’m taking note that it’s love. Love, she told me. Love everything and so I do. From the morning rays of the sun to the first friend I see each day–I love it all.

It’s the only thing that makes cancer bearable. The only thing that makes life beautiful.