After Betty Doyle

By Grace Marsh

1.

One where I am seventeen and my sister finds

me on my bed asks if I'm K-holing promises to keep

it a secret if only I'll tell her what I've taken

I don't know what a K-hole is yet 

I want to experience it my eyes close

2.

One where my shirt is cut 

from my body in front of my mother-in-law 

she sees my nipple piercings pink hearts 

and my face blue lips

and the paramedics green shirts 

she asks them to be gentle with me 

3.

One where a taxi driver says

I'd kill myself if I were you 

4.

One where I spent 

my disability benefits on Taylor Swift merch

for my best friend's birthday 

5.

One where my best friend made it

to her birthday

6.

One where I stop clock-watching hanging

onto spinning hands counting

the days hoping 

there are more of them ahead wanting

the time I have left 

to feel like enough knowing

it never will

7.

One where my anaesthetist asks 

about my PhD while administering propofol 

I tell her something

8.

One where I live 

long enough to complete

my PhD

9.

One where my girlfriend gives me

mouth-to-mouth it isn't sexy 

10.

One where my grandma lived

long enough to see me kept alive

by tubes

11.

One where I am lucky

because my life is worth living

enough for me to fear death 

with everything I have

even sick even in pain

my life is worth living

12.

One where I donate to the Children's Hospice 

that cared for a girl I never met a friend of a friend

our only thing in common was a diagnosis and yet

13.

One where my phone battery breaks

it drains so quickly now 

14.

One where my auntie tells me to write

a will I don't have anything to leave

to anyone but she says that's not the point

I ask her what the point is she isn't sure

she just knows it's something I should do 

15.

One where loss

made me softer gentler

I am glad I have not yet

been hardened sharpened 

to a point made a blade 

by the whetstone of my grief

16. 

One where a man interrupts

our family walk to point

at the tube on my face and ask

if I have cancer

I don't have cancer 

he seems relieved 

I'm happy for him

17.

One where I consider elective amputation 

18. 

One where I find out what a K-hole is

19.

One where my wound care nurse talks

about her all-inclusive holiday while

she changes my dressings

I breathe just breathe 

20.

One where I crochet a blanket

for my girlfriend's sister from 

my hospital bed I give it to her for Christmas

I am readmitted before New Year's Eve

21.

One where my girlfriend is my carer

I don't know if I should be ashamed 

or not

I ask the world to be gentle with her she will miss me  

when I'm gone

22. 

One where I read the memoirs of dying

people who are now dead people 

their words skewer my tender flesh 

what a privilege it is to bleed

23.

One where I start writing my memoir 

when I can't sleep from the steroids

what a privilege it is to have writer's block

24.

One where writer's block is definitely not

a fucking privilege

25. 

One where

26.

One where

27.

One where I am tired of fighting

28.

One where I will never stop fighting

29.

One where calling this life fighting

feels like a punch in the gut

30.

One where I died

for real this time no more close shaves

or brushes or almosts

and there was no bright light

no tunnel ready for me to follow

no grandma waiting

with open arms

no best friend ready

to give me a tour of Heaven

there was nothing 

I don't know which is worse 

eternal or finite life

I don't know which is worse

the end of suffering 

or the end of being

By Grace Marsh