Lungs.

 “I know you have health anxiety too” 
my brother messages me 
and tells me I should 
get myself checked out. 
that maybe, maybe it’s worth mentioning 
that “your brother and your mum have both been 

diagnosed with lung cancer within a year of each other” 
“push them for a CT scan.”
I wonder why I can’t feel a fucking thing.
and isn’t it funny, how I would never have called my avoidance 

of doctors health anxiety. health anxiety? who me? 
I feel like I would know
if my own lungs were giving up 
on me. Because 
I always know.
when I’m giving up on myself.
I don’t tell him. I don’t tell him.
that I can’t go a whole day
without breaking down 
at the most inconvenient times. 
that my head constantly feels like 
it will imminently explode. 

I don’t tell him that I write him messages all the time, 

that I don’t send in case I say the wrong thing 

Or feel too much. 
I don’t tell him that I wanted to buy
him a present, but I don’t know what
to get someone with stage three cancer
that doesn’t scream -
“I’m really scared you’re going to die”