Non-Fiction

Three times he said “I love you” and I didn’t notice. Not till later. Days later, even, when I would be lying in bed and suddenly it would hit me.

I struggled to unzip the the bottom layer of my wet-look, sunshine yellow, vinyl, fully lined raincoat to transform it from maxi-length into midi.

I remembered, as I always do at such moments, the remarkable series of epiphanies I experienced on a Monday evening twenty-five years ago.

I fold into a weary pigeon and dream about what it would feel like to perfectly execute a bear, a spoon, a spider, to live inside a healthy body that is not chronically ill…

Breast cancer causes profound loss and grief. We grieve the loss of our bodies. We grieve the loss of our feminine identity.

Once, in an ultrasound room, a technician in a faded grey frock asked me which pregnancy this was. “My ninth,” I said in a flat voice.

It doesn’t matter how old the wound is; the mere mention of him makes my mood shift. “Let the past be the past,” they claim. I am. “What’s your problem?” I have none.

I write this to remember, David. I need something more fluid than a photograph, something that comprehends more of you…”

I relax my hands and remember that, when we work together, we know what to do. They guide me to the right place without fail, and slip in easily with a sigh.