Cancer

Words that cannot be taken back settle into your body in a different way than they settle into your thoughts. Your mind replays them, edits them, argues with them, but your shoulders carry the actual weight of what was exchanged in that moment. The conversation may have ended weeks ago, but your chest still tightens when you pass the room where it happened, your stomach still drops when their name appears on your phone. This is how some truths live in you now, not as ideas you think about but as responses your body has learned. The repair, when it comes, will have to speak the same language.