“I’m a grenade and at some point I’m going to blow up and I would like to minimize the causalities, okay?

 

I’m a grenade. I just want to stay away from people and read books and things and be with you guys because there’s nothing I can do about hurting you; you’re too invested, so just please let me do that, okay? I’m not depressed. I don’t need to get out more. And I can’t be a regular teenager, because I’m a grenade.”                             –from Hazel, The Fault in Our Stars by John Green 

These wonderful lines by John Green mean so much to me. I faced my own medical struggles and wrote a poem a few years ago that uses similar symbolism to communicate what it is like living expecting destruction in the future.

Here is my poem, i am a volcano.

 

they told me

i was a volcano.

they told me

don’t worry

you are dormant

they told me that

they were filled with reason

I was filled with lava

they told me

that eruptions may occur

but cannot be predicted

but that I was dormant

that they would try to keep me dormant

they stormed and shined and rained at me

at me,

the volcano