Do You Know How Many Beautiful Things Can Be Seen in a Single Second?

If you haven’t already found Andrea Gibson and their magnificent heart-opening poetry, you’ve been missing something truly wonderful.  Here is one of her poems. And after the poem, a few quotes.  You might also want to read “How the Worst Day of My Life Became the Best.”  You can find her intensely moving spoken-word performances on YouTube, and there’s a wonderful documentary available, “Come See Me in the Good Light.”

In the chemo room, I wear mittens made of ice so I don’t lose my fingernails. But I took a risk today to write this down.

 by Andrea Gibson

Whenever I spend the day crying,
my friends tell me I look high. Good grief,

they finally understand me.
Even when the arena is empty, I thank god

for the shots I miss. If you ever catch me
only thanking god for the shots I make,

remind me I’m not thanking god. Remind me
all my prayers were answered

the moment I started praying
for what I already have.

Jenny says when people ask if she’s out of the woods,
she tells them she’ll never be out of the woods,

says there is something lovely about the woods.
I know how to build a survival shelter

from fallen tree branches, packed mud,
and pulled moss. I could survive forever

on death alone. Wasn’t it death that taught me
to stop measuring my lifespan by length,

but by width? Do you know how many beautiful things
can be seen in a single second? How you can blow up

a second like a balloon and fit infinity inside of it?
I’m infinite, I know, but I still have a measly wrinkle

collection compared to my end goal. I would love  
to be a before picture, I think, as I look in the mirror

and mistake my head for the moon. My dark
thoughts are almost always 238,856 miles away

from me believing them. I love this life, 
I whisper into my doctor’s stethoscope

so she can hear my heart. My heart, an heirloom
I didn’t inherit until I thought I could die.

Why did I go so long believing I owed the world
my disappointment? Why did I want to take

the world by storm when I could have taken it
by sunshine, by rosewater, by the cactus flowers

on the side of the road where I broke down?
I’m not about to waste more time

spinning stories about how much time
I’m owed, but there is a man

who is usually here, who isn’t today.
I don’t know if he’s still alive. I just know

his wife was made of so much hope
she looked like a firework above his chair.

Will the afterlife be harder if I remember
the people I love, or forget them?

Either way, please let me remember.

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Andrea Gibson: 

“After being diagnosed with ovarian cancer, I saw our world as if it were a new planet. Confronting my mortality was the seed that grew into a newfound gratitude for life.  Even when I lost my eyelashes to chemotherapy I wrote, ‘That’s four hundred wishes I wouldn’t have made otherwise.’ But because I did not want to lose my fingernails too, I’d religiously ice my hands for hours during treatment—unless a poem begged me to type it. ‘Is that line worth losing a nail over?’ my partner would ask.

“Almost always, I’d smile and say, ‘Yes.’”

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“I may never be enlightened enough to decide how I want to die. So, this morning I’ve decided how I want to live.”

– Andrea Gibson, “Enough”

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“In the end, I want my heart to be covered in stretch marks.”

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