the poem

my friend, the author and playwright, he comforts me. his love and his messages and such, they comfort me. the thing is, he's backwards, he has it backwards, in his book and in other places, he thanks me for inspiring him and his words. he says that i am an inspiration. but really, i'm just a girl with a disease who is willing to share my struggle. that only makes me special because he cares.

anyway - he wrote me a poem, the most amazing poem, that i read every day and that i love so much and that makes me cry - in the book, he wrote poems inpired by me or poems on topics that i gave him, but this poem...this poem is about me. this poem is...special.

this is my poem:

once upon a time
there was a girl
who was so good at life
the gods got a little jealous.
she gets it
they'd say.
understands the value of
beauty and brains
the value of food and music
bacon and hip-hop
the value of sex and love
and drugs and sobriety
she understands the value
of it all and of balance
and of not taking any of it
too seriously or too lightly.

this level of understanding
of getting it
was all too much for these proud gods to take.
and so
they rained plagues
stormed hardship against her brow
employed dragons, parasites, demons
hired ninjas -ninjas, man!
worked the girl
day through night
attempting to crack her indomitable spirit

she cried
gnashed teeth
suffered loss
massive, unreplenishable loss
was beat to her knees
to her chest
to her soul

but she got up.
looked at the gods.
forgave them.
and smiled.

and we, watching helpless, cried joyful,
and we, finally,
understood.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

amazing.

sometimes i feel like i am floating.
and unmoored.

and no one gets it, or me at all.

like i am all alone because no one even wants to try to understand what it is like to feel this way so much.

but i am not alone. there are people that care. there are people that care enough to try to give it their own words, their own expression, their own artistic viewpoint to show me beauty, there are people who have been sending me package after package so that i come home to something lovely almost every day so that i am focusing on that instead of my looming surgery.

there are people who care enough to come from different cities to hang out with me and bring me juice and call me every day to see how i am and not be offended when i don't anwer.

i am not alone in the world.