the cancer diagnosis

Fortesa Latifi

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the cancer diagnosis
Fortesa Latifi
Poem

even the most normal of things can betray you-
sunlight; salt; the air between words; your body.
when you accept this, you will want to scream
but it seems strange to scream when everything
around you is bathed in peace – so you swallow it.
the day the x-ray lights up in the doctor’s office,
you barely hear the words coming out of his mouth.
later, you will find fragments in your ears ‘recovery /
survival / scar’ and you want to laugh at the absurdity of it all.
next to you, your mother is crying. when the doctor
leaves the room, you tell her not to look at you –
you don’t want to see what she sees reflected in her eyes.
the knowledge is too much to bear. you wonder how
you could have walked through the world without knowing
what was going on inside your own throat.
there was a time when you thought the worst
things could only happen to other people. this time has come
and gone and you are standing on the other side of it now,
holding your head in your hands.

Latifi, F. (2016, February 10). The cancer diagnosis. https:// thefemlitmagazine.wordpress.com/2016/02/10/2-poems-fortesa-latifi/?

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Biography:

Fortesa Latifi is a 22-year old poet. She is a graduate of the University of Arizona and calls the desert home. Her first book, This Is How We Find Each Other, was published through Where Are You Press in 2014 and she still can’t believe it. Her work has been featured in Persona, Words Dance, Femrat, Kosovo 2.0, Rising Phoenix, Human Parts, Mend, and is forthcoming in To Write Love On Her Arms. She is currently a contributing editor at Words Dance Magazine where she gets to sing about poetry all day long. Her second book, We Were Young, was published through Where Are You Press in November 2015. She hopes it reminds you of being young and having lipstick smudged on your teeth.