targetless

Poem by Alexandra Weiss

---

i try to be gracious because
knowing i have the mutation is a privilege,
not compared to not having it
but compared to my life before, to
having it and not knowing
i'm grateful to have options
information, access, health insurance
as much as they should be basic rights
they're not in this country
and my aunt, she saved us
and i can't waste that
now i'm the oldest woman in the family
who has it, it's my turn
to carry this torch
my family needs someone to
light the way and survive
so normally i wouldn't write like this
i'd be too scared of hurting feelings
scaring my younger relatives
or coming across as ungrateful
for the surgery that saved my life
or the research that made it possible
or the deaths of those who didn't have
the gift of knowing ahead of time
because it falls in the selection shadow
and was only discovered in the 90s
people have even called my poems careful
but i don't want to be careful
nobody writes to be careful
instead, i'm going to scream
until my voice cracks
scar ragged
like the red lines in my chest wall
where they used to be
because sometimes it hurts to be grateful
sometimes i'm angry
even though there's nobody to be angry at
because it's nobody's fault,
not mine, not my parents'
and while it's true i'm ashkenazi
i got it from the goy side of the family
so i can't even blame it on the
nazis or the ghettoes
and i don't want to blame my body
i want to love it, but i don't know how
because it's still trying to kill me
still collecting dna damage
as the risk percentage increases
year by year until it's time for the next surgery
so i try to breathe and forget what comes next
to be a previvor who already made the right choice
i try to be proud of my scars
but they remind me that this thing
is in me so deep
i have to cut myself up to survive
making preemptive strike after preemptive strike
until finally i'm like my rage
targetless
new years
it's late here and i'm
texting myself by candlelight
to phoebe bridgers
the candles are for you phyllis

About the Writer

Alexandra Weiss is a grad student in Chicago. She loves halloween and hard-to-kill houseplants. Her work has appeared in Plants & Poetry Journal, Wildfire, Another Chicago Magazine and From the Depths, among others.