Leukemia

Leukemia. The word still scrapes at me. Like glimmers of waking up from a fresh nightmare, one where I had been falling from the tallest building imaginable. Remembering that fear, the pitting in my stomach as I plunged to the ground, the knowledge that sudden death was immanent and rapidly approaching.  The world hurling against my insides as I insulted gravity. Or the ones when I have been deprived the right to breathe by her majesty, the water in a drowning nightmare. Knowing the waves of sheer height would kill me but knowing there was nothing I could do.  I would eventually have to succumb to the aquatic chaos, feeling the briny air strangle me, my weakening muscles forfeiting against the ebb’s fierceness.  The dream where I know I am sleeping and have to wake up, but no matter how loud I scream or try and shake my extremities, my voice is silent and my muscles are weak.  Knowing that danger was seeking me out, coming for me and that I had to wake up, but no matter how loud I screamed to myself or tried to move, I was paralyzed and mute.  The worst kind of nightmares that still scratch at your being when reminiscing on them. The thoughts that this life will be the death of me, an echoing scream that’s silent to the world around you but louder than agony in your heart. Every time I hear that word, I reminded of a nightmare. One that I had long ago but is still young in nature to my being.

©Devon Volkel