I’ve been lucky enough to not have my immediate family affected by breast cancer (although I can’t say the same for other cancers), but I have witnessed so many families around me that have suffered through a loved one’s breast cancer diagnosis and dealt with its outcome, whether it be good or bad.

I can’t even begin to visualize what it must feel like to have someone close to you with breast cancer, or what it’s like to be a woman with breast cancer, or what it’s like to lose someone to it. All I know is that it must be more difficult than I could ever imagine, and I never want to know what it feels like.

This poem is dedicated to all the women who have been through a breast cancer diagnosis, regardless of if they have won the battle, passed on, or are still fighting today. This poem is also dedicated to the families of these unbreakable women, because cancer has also changed your lives forever. This month is yours, to celebrate the victories, honor the scars, and remember those who left too soon.

You sit on the

cold table, and

watch the door handle

turn slowly. You shift your

weight to face

the doctor. He walks in

the room and

his eyes

tell you

war has been waged on

your body,

a ravaging of soul and

piece of mind, while

peace is gone and

you battle time, to

fight for

more of it.

You begin to live in shadows.

No one will understand why

you sink into bedsheets early in

the day

now

silently to drown

in your fears alone,

after your daughter gets on the school bus

and

your husband goes to work.

You wonder how you will say it,

how they will handle the news,

when you tell them that

you are scared to lose

your life,

will never be the same.

You draw curtains over the window

at noon, walk by the mirror and

wonder

why your body betrayed you, and

how

you will look soon without

parts of you

that you never thought to lose.

You believe your womanhood is

defined by what they will

need

to remove, and that your husband's

love will be gone,

too

once they change you

and take them away, to keep

nothing but two heavy

scars across your chest as

reminders of only what is left,

now.

You begin treatments, and

you

feel fragile, like a piece of

glass

that could break with a hug

given too desperately, so

sometimes you'd rather not be

touched.

You lose things that made

you feel beautiful once. Tears

are not caught by eyelashes, and

it scares you that

you are used to

the smoothness of your head,

not your hair.

You fight.

You fight hard.

Time moves.

You realize your body

does not

come with a warranty, and so

every day you try to fix

yourself a little,

with a smile, and a nice

outfit, and maybe a walk

with your family

to see the leaves change

on trees that aren't afraid

to fall.

You realize that hair will

grow back, and love

does not

come and go as

it pleases,

but it stays, and

lives in

your daughter's kisses,

and your husband's hands

when he holds yours.

You live and breathe in

life around you, and begin

to think

that maybe your scars

are more than pain,

but a way to remember

that you can and are

beautiful again, in this

new body.

You fight.

You wait.

You sit on the cold table, and

watch the door handle

turn slowly. Things are different

now.

Maybe it will be better news, this time.