To all warriors,

I can live with white, with grey, but not with black. The fact that it absorbs everything and captures all makes me feel so insecure. Oh Shakespeare, why torture time by calling it sluttish? Time gives momentary happiness, momentary pleasure, some space to feel all fragments of life, but darkness, darkness just steals everything, leaves us bereft of everything but pain and suffering.

Cancer is black. Cancer is dark. Cancer is the robber that leaves you in a street where loneliness molests you and you shout and scream, you bend and freeze, you plead for help, for being rescued, for being dead. Yes, dead. You see red everywhere, crafted with darkness, dreary and spine chilling, you see ghosts who say it's just the beginning, you feel weak, you fall, you exhaust, you try and climb, just some steps and this mountain ends, but these steps, oh these steps, they are daggers that cut your bones. Flesh is a luxury, for you're ugly with just this calcium. You want to die and end this never ending pain, but then you see vague figures of those who taught you love, and for this love you stop. You can't be so selfish, no not so selfish.

Cancer came to me, just like it did to you, slow and steady, but deadly as ever. I remember when the doctor asked daddy to get my tests done, and how confident he was about me being completely fine with just some minor deficiencies. And I remember exactly how my mom just broke when she saw my reports, how she couldn't speak, not even a word, and I cried, I begged her to speak, but she looked at me and said, "Baby, I can't live without you. I cannot do without you." And how she shouted at daddy for the very first time, "I want her. I want nothing, but her, do you understand that?" I cried, cried for hours, while holding my pillow tight. I cried not because I was diagnosed with cancer, but because I caused cancer to the only people I've ever loved. I cried at how destructive I was and how utterly devastating my existence had become.

Everything's proportional, happiness and sadness too. Each day that I live today, I live with a hope that this bank of grief would soon end, and my policy would mature only to give me happiness in returns, with interest mind you. I live with a hope that one day I'd be able to give mumma and daddy their smiles back, and take away all the pain that has homed in them. One day, yes, one day.