I Am Cancer.

I am Cancer. That’s what I’ve realized.

When I was 12, Seventh grade happened. Lot’s of strange people. Lots of new things. An unveiling came upon me. Ultimately, a loss of innocence. I walked through the corridors looking for one of my new classes, math I think. Then some girl started walking next to me. She seemed nice, she asked me where I was going. I noticed a lot about her right away, she had a peace sign necklace. Streaks in her hair, a little too much make-up. I was prettier than her. Definitely. I started judging her right away. Seventh graders carry those little pretensions. They’re funny like that, I guess.

Cancer loves it’s home. Cancer’s got a big family. “The more the merrier,” Cancer has been known to say. Cancer can’t help telling stories sometimes; and cancer loves to have stories told about it. Cancer wears its heart on its sleeve. Cancer is moody; happy one day, making its home writhe in pain the next. When threatened, Cancer has a tendency to revert back inside its shell and hide. But don’t worry, once that chemo-therapy danger clears Cancer always comes back out to play. Cancer fills itself with tenacity and harbors a strong will. Cancer gets it’s way or those with Cancer “get it.”

Turned out that the girl and I were walking towards the same destination. I‘m pretty sure it was math class, as I said before. We sat down together towards the back of the room. I learned from that first conversation that she had a name: Megan; and that I was cancer.

The age of Cancer has long since past, nor is it coming back any time soon. Though, somehow, Cancer lives on. Some would say Cancer feels angry that time has overtaken it and has been trying to take it’s home down with it. The books still say that cancer is motivated to protect it’s home. That makes me wonder what protection is.

It changed me, when I learned that I was Cancer. Before that it was all happy Christian dreams of Jesus’ love and joy. Then there was this girl in math (I think), talking about practices ultimately associated with Wicca and even Satanism. Suddenly I was out of my happy vein, someone had cut me lose. I’d lost my innocence and discovered that I was humanity’s collective pain.

I am Cancer, That’s what Megan, my math buddy from ages long outgrown, told me. First she asked me what my birthday was, then she told me very clearly that I was cancer. She went on to reveal that she was an Aquarius, and forwarded her conversation with a long history of astrology, getting many of the facts wrong. It stuck with me though, that short moment where I turned into a malignant disease that has been slowly overtaking humanity from the beginning of time.

A dog’s heart is warm. When a master brings over friends the dog will come and greet them. It will smile and wag it’s tail. It loves the master’s friends immediately. It does not judge them by the peace signs on their necklaces, by the streaks in their hair, by the amount of make-up they wear, by how pretty they are. Humans do all of that, but a dog’s heart is warm.

If I am a crab, then that girl from math class was not a man bearing water, her astrological sign. That long lost friend did not come into my life to give me the water I, an aquarium dwelling crustacean, so bitterly longed for. She was, and most likely still is, a crab like me. She snaps her claws at other crabs, she fights them, she distrusts them, she fears them. If I am a crab, crusty and unhappy, then she is a crab too , bitter and, because there is no better word, crabby. We are all Cancers. A dog’s heart is warm, but a humans heart is cold. Unlike the all-loving dog, a human’s heart bears no water for the crabs of our world. A human’s heart is cancer.

We’re shooting each other out there. And we’re binding, torturing, killing each other too. We’re attacking, raping, ripping, sacking, breaking, taking from, and tearing each other. In every sense of the word. We’re beating each other down and the ground is concrete; it breaks our fall too hard. Cancer. We ARE Cancer. And I am Cancer too. I’m not like that dog. I’m cruel. Malicious, malignant even. I feel pain and will people to feel it back. I’m Cancer. I’m taking us all down because my golden days are gone. I Am Cancer and my family is the biggest family in the world.

Or maybe astrology doesn’t mean anything. Maybe I’m Aquarian, bearing the water for all thirsty crabs. Maybe I can be like that dog and greet you. Maybe my seventh grade days are gone and I can come up to some ugly girl and think nothing of it except that I’d like to know her; she’s probably a wonderful person.

I hope so. I hope the age of cancer closed a long, long time ago. I hope that cancer can limit itself to a distortion of unruly cells. I hope sunburns or smoking cause cancer, not people like you and I. I don’t want to be cancer, I want to be water, that life giving fluid. I want to help people; I’m afraid to hurt them. I want to greet you and serve you and love you like a happy puppy dog. I want to go out and meet you, I want you to be happy. Unconditional love, the kind I thought Jesus had before my innocence was torn away in seventh grade. That’s what I want. That’s what I hope for.

People are cruel to each other, but we don’t have to be a part of it anymore! I guess that’s what I’ve been trying to say all of this time.