I don’t know if I’m different
because of damage to brain cells,
added-up hours of worry,
digestive stress from the lockdown of anti-nausea pills,
or shocking bills somehow shockingly paid,
because now I talk at work in cliches
because I have bigger fish to fry.
I don’t know if I’m different
than I would have been at forty and four months
if thirty-seven and six months hadn’t gifted
eighteen months of treatment
and ongoing three-month scans,
like the scan in three days
that might be different,
or might not be
different, leaving me
different
the same
for another three months.
///
Brett Stuckel | March 2025
Many thanks to Libre for publishing. As of June 2025, Libre is under reconstruction.