New Birthday

All my life is gone now, that I had before.
All the years by which I counted my life,
Are as cleanly cut from me, as if by a gamma knife.
All my days of joy were swept away, like dust swept out a door,
As if the sands of my life had turned into dirt upon a filthy floor.
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My new birthday is coming in just one more day.
My old birthday is, really--in my heart--almost no more.
My old birthday was April the fifteenth.
My new birthday is December the seventeenth.
On that day, last year, I was given my diagnosis--
And I was given my first cancer treatment--then I and time began to run a race,
Based on--from different doctors--my variously given prognosis.
I set the scale of life at zero, and started to keep score.
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A blessing to live another year--another year of my life which is cursed.
Cursed with cancer--and, in some ways worse, the cancer treatments --
Canceling all birthdays from before.
They feel as blank as the cold nonexistence which draws too near and threatens me.
My new birthday coming up will be the first.
My first birthday, measured not as any year A.D.,
But as my first year A.C.--
After Cancer--and before the painful cancer death that is very likely going to take me.
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Soon one year will have fully passed.  Then--in my life-threatened heart--I'll be only one year old.
This one year--the first year--the cancer treatments virtually guaranteed I would live to see.
As for another year, my cancer grants no guarantee.
My remission may end at any time now, I've been told.
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Or remission might continue for another year or two--or any time between--
Who knows when my life will bleed into oblivion?
Today I am here.  Today I can hear.  I can be heard.  I can be seen.
I can speak.  I can write.  I can think.  I can imagine.  I can see.
Tomorrow, the cancer may get hungry, and begin to feed, and I'll be gone.
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I shall remain in poor health, and will suffer continuing declines of health, untill I die.
Eventually the cancer will tatter me;
But for now, it is my treatments that rob me of good health.  But here is why I mostly cry:
All my desire now just hurts and aches in my heart--I have strong desire to feel normal desire;
But I have no desire I can truly show, for the treatments cause me very low to almost no libido.
I have fire burning in me, hot in my heart, and bright in my eyes; but, for loving, I cannot find fire.
The rest that I suffer I can endure, while I hope that the holistic way will someday cause a cure.
So I have to live with virtually no muscles, and with decreasing bone density and muscle mass.
Okay, so that's the way I've got to live.  Anyway, all things must pass.
This too shall pass some day.
I too shall pass away.
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A whole year.
Time has made the first cancer-year to disappear.
Like a conjurer's trick.
If a whole year can go by me in a flash that quick,
What hope have I?
It scares me.  I fear how fast and faster my time shall fly.
I, who will, in an almost certainly very short time,
Very probably, horribly die.
Fate has dealt me my life's last hand.
My hour-glass is sifting out my life's last sand.
I never know now when I'll be writing my life's last rhyme.
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I will be lucky if I shall have as much as another year.  I may be even luckier, and have a few years.
All my precious decades, though, that before last year had seemed plump plums ahead--
All those decades of years of my future time of living, taking and giving, are already dead.
Long ago I found my first love, Science, who will not let me make a paramour of Faith.
But Science torments me to make me think my life is a transitory brief ghostly wraith.
Even less than that, because cancer has cut me short, and my decades of tomorrows have far fled.
Although I love Science, she coldly shows for my life the soon-coming painful cutting of cancer-shears.
Unless the holistic approach I try is no luring lie.  Still, for me, faith is only my heart's hopes and fears.
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I'm sorry for everything, and I'm glad for everything.
I regret everything, and I'm grateful for everything.
Every day of my life is deep grief and precious joy.
My treatments are a health-stealing thief.  All my golden dreams, the new days destroy:
Slowly stealing even my life.  Worst of all, depriving me of women's love, so that I must die lonely.
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But I am not all consumed with losses and pains.
My memories are still magic; and enough good in my life still remains,
To give me, every day, a fleet fearful world of wondrous wealth.
December seventeenth shall mark one cancer-captured year;
One year of life since I found out I have cancer.  And, whether by blind forutne or by good grace,
It looks now that on the day that marks my first cancer-circled year, I will still be here.
I don't know when I'm going away; but I think that tomorrow's dawning day,
At least, shall soon see me still seeing the world; and, to myself, I then can say: Happy Birthday.



--Written by Michael LP, aka MLP
aka PoetWithCancer, aka PWC, aka Mr. Poet
Written on Wednesday, December 16, 2009 10:55 pm PST
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High: 60° F. Low: 36° F.  Sunrise: 6:44 am PST Sunset: 4:26 pm PST
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