wildscape. literary journal

Perishable
by Christy Hartman

           Metaphors are failing me. The ups and downs of a rollercoaster, the chaos and resettling of a snow globe, the horror of finding a worm in your apple. My mother-in-law calls it my cancer journey; like I’m a grizzled pioneer regaling their friends with fireside tall tales. It’s the friends we made along the way, valuable life lessons learned through hardship and trials, and strength of character gained through adversity. I despise the word journey.
           No one wants to hear about the journey of the scope through my cervix without anesthesia because women are tough and I can handle it; just concentrate on the crooked print of The Lady of Shalott pinned to the ceiling and squeeze the pillow if you really need to. 
          Or the week I stayed up all night rabbit-hole researching until the anxiety made me throw up, but always in the guest bathroom so I wouldn’t wake my husband, and his soft words of consolation couldn’t spark hope. 
          Or the notification ding when a friend of a friend, using my trauma as watercooler chatter, reached out to reassure me God doesn’t give us more than we can handle; I told her to fuck off, blocked them both, then cried myself to sleep and dreamt of apples and serpents and pulsating black tumors.
           I can’t settle on a metaphor for when I was deemed healthy and cancer-free, but my brain hadn’t even processed the diagnosis. New lease on life was exhausting when I discovered that the world had gone on without me. A weight off my shoulders buried me in the expectation I should slip back into life as though everything I thought I knew about the universe and myself was still true, and constant anxiety, deep fear of being alone and out-of-the-blue panic attacks were only a phase. 
           I should be grateful. I want to be grateful. I am grateful. 
           But.
           My therapist talks about how an existential crisis can shift one’s core beliefs. My core whispers interchangeable truths and lies to my soul. My couch confession today is that I’m not sure I still believe in souls. 
           An apple may be the perfect metaphor; irony being another solid writer’s tool. The flesh is still sweet and crisp despite the shiny skin being tarnished with scrapes and bruises from being plucked and passed around. But the core, where life’s essence begins and ends, has transformed to swirling liquid, changing colour from glittery pink to squid ink black-uncontrolled and volatile. Perishable.

about the author // Christy Hartman