Body Slowing

My days are slow since I landed back on Nassau. The ground is warm and soft. It pulls my feet into it as i walk on its dewy grass trying to duck the sun on a morning walk. I woke up today with fear ringing in my ear. This feeling in my womb that doctors are testing, it makes me feel things that aren't there. A pain in my breast. A rumbling in my stomach. Is it just gas or is it something else.... When i ate the potato last night without following it with water, my esophagus hurt. I felt something vague in my throat a few days ago. Are there lumps in my legs?

Hillary Clinton's friend died of lung cancer three months after getting a clean check from doctors. Kylie Minogue and Melissa Ethridge got breast cancer. A friend of a friend's friend got diagnosed with terminal breast cancer at age 24. Everyone's going to get eventually. Especially me. My grandmother died of cervical cancer. My mother died of breast. When I'm thirty, pap smears will need to be done every year. I'm contemplating getting rid of my womb to preempt fickle cells before they trade sides on me. I might have HPV. I'm over 26 and I've had sex with more than two men.

Women's bodies alter as they age. Cells mutate. Period cycles adjust. Free radicals alter DNA. The red wine's not working. How many antioxidants are in green tea? I'm quitting meat.

I am a sitting duck for cell mutiny. My body is on a path to self-destruction. Implosion is imminent.

Youth offers such certainty that any prospect of death shocks us into a deep well of self-searching. I've never looked at myself as one whe would be afraid. I always figured that when the time came, i would be ready. But suddenly i realize just how much ability I have. I've never had the confidence to call myself a writer. Now i want to write. I want to move to France and master the language and own my own vineyard. I want to study. I want to write poetry. I want to lobby the government to educate its people about the environment. I want I want I want. So much.

These hours are long. The heat is heavy on my shoulders. The limestone in which my feet sinks, slows my pace. I wake with hands pulling me down into my mattress, saying, "What is it you think you're going to do today? You're a dead woman."