My doctor described my polyp as an express bus about to go local…a long progression to the next express stop – cancer. They caught it in time – funny to think of my gastro as a bus driver taking tokens and opening the back doors with a hydraulic “ppppssssssss” to let me off… who was left on that bus? What version of me would have not looked up from his book upon hearing the announcement “THIS BUS WILL BE DOING LOCAL STOPS TO 125th Street”. That version of me would have though – I’ve got time to do this… But I don’t.

I chose to step off… and walk to the subway…to get to my destination… leaving 40 other versions of myself on that bus…

How to leave be that you chose to stay on that bus. Past the next express stop and well into upper manhattan… and then nothing… I tried to find you…call you… see what is going on… this is an issue.. you’re not eating, have no energy, can’t work out and when you do focus you have to lie down for hours..You’re emotions changed (as the tumor grew) – I thought it was stress…then you started slurring your words… I remember being at the grocery store and you were saying something witty to the cashier and she didn’t understand you….You have never been one not to be understood. You crumpling to the ground…the Sandyhook drive where you had flashes of pain so deep you – said something… which you never do…pain was something you had a large capacity for… learned as a child at the hand of your mother (another bus – you did get off of)….

I wanted you to live and be with me…stay with me…I did everything I could…stay with me my love… Why oh why didn’t you get off that transport and choose another direction… You’re tumor completely avoidable on the right HIV drugs… which we couldn’t afford… and your anger wouldn’t let you go back on your old drugs… gems, books, saging and meditation became your medication… You’d been living with HIV since 14…62 is a long time to live with a time bomb inside you…

Tears well inside me – inside my brain…it hurts to think of you… and think of that future where we said we would very old and hard of hearing walking the beach with each other and me turning to you and in a loud volume “Where’s the water?”

I love you my dear… I got off the bus…I will carry you like the book I was reading – almost too engrossed in it not to hear the bus drivers announcement.

God. I. Love. You. My. .S