Cold Reader

I've been staring out of a picture window in the living room every day, watching the season cool, safe behind the glass. I feel as if I myself am pinned and under glass. Every day the same monotony, the same delicate routine. Chemo-brain has caused my writing to be a mess- I can't edit anymore, it seems. Things just fail to... come together...

winter woman, you are a
pale shade of red
watching, still in bed
the crocuses offering upwards
like innumerable paper cups
their
little indignities

how did you get in the business
of not being born?

how did you inherit
this endless passing time
the count of broken lines
on the folds of your palm

you are a cold reader, you are
under the knife
the slivers of a past life
submerged under skin
tiny sunken ships are
just beneath the surface
i remember them still.

winter woman, a humble and
healthy shade of dead
watching, from your bed
the cruelty of a sunrise
the amputation of your holidays through
a picture window
shiny sunken bulbs are
just beneath the surface
waiting to bloom
i remember them still.

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A friend recently introduced me to the band Deerhunter, and I am in love. A good deal of the lyrics refer to the hopelessness of chemo and radiation treatment, isolation, etcetera. Here is an except from their blog:

"When I was sixteen I was hospitalized for extensive surgeries on my chest ribs and back because of marfan's. That entire summer was like completely erased. I was in a coma for a couple of weeks. I got to really understand what its like to not be well. I've always sort of understood, growing up with marfan's, but this was hardcore shit ... Anyways, I was trying to transpose the concepts of illness (in this case I was writing from the perspective of someone going in and out of consciousness during chemotherapy, and how they would miss their friends, their past experiences, and anything that reminded them of normalcy, or a time before misery. Nostalgia as anesthetic."