Who took care of me?

This is my baby steps for dealing with some of my very overwhelming emotions I have been having lately - so I turn to poetry to begin to express these emotions. I hope going to a cancer support group will help me as well. Some of you know I can use words to get a some kind of truth - well this is the truth for me right now. I hope you can accept it for what it is - that of something that needs to be expressed for me - especially the anger, which bottled up isn't good, and that this is a way to help me begin deal with and talk about my cancer.


Where the fuck were you?
Not there to hear me weep at night
To hold me when the fear got too much
How will things work out?
How can I keep some semblance of normal?
To be there when with doctors or tests
But not the in between times
The times I would cry at my desk
Hiding my terror from everyone
Who made and got to the appointments
When all I wanted to do what run away
To anywhere but the doctors office
Because of the terror of hearing more bad news
When I had to fight for what I needed
Where were you?
I don’t want to intellectualize my emotion anymore
To give someone else my polite excuse
To be diplomatic
I want to let them out
Express them
And move on
Where were you as I tried to hold my life together?
Where were you when I started going nuts in the hospital
From lack of sleep
Or when my throat really hurt from the tube that ran down
Did you speak up for me?
My persistance got the numbing spray
Don't tell me this is all they can do
Now the anger comes
Only after most is said and done
And Life tries to return to normal
What normal?
How can you think I didn’t go through this alone
I did the best I could to reach out and tell you clearly what I needed
I tried to tell everyone what I needed
I wanted to scream at the doctors
Don’t you fucking get it – I hate needles – I mean I completely freak out
But did they listen
No.
Did they help me deal with the terror
In their white lab coats and analytical minds
Dealing only with the body and lets forget the mind
Emotions don’t even exsist
Where you not listening?
And so I didn’t get the care I needed
And had to settle for taking care of myself
None of you curled up with me day in and day out
To hold me all those nights in my apartment when I had to cry myself to sleep
Looking into the terror of death
Looking at the terror of living – how?
What hope could you give me that I didn’t already have myself?
What will to fight?
The animal desperate to survive
Now I am disappointed and feel let down
Who was here to take care of me?
Me.