“Not yet,” I whisper to the heavens. “I love it here.” — Clare Cory
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when desperate thoughts come seeking me
in the dark dear moments of near insanity,
when the hounding is bounding and baying,
nipping at my heels but aiming for my throat,
and the litany of next time, we’ll meet again,
is a whispery threating thread in my head that no scrubbing,
can unravel, erase, debase, or erase that awful distaste of
my embittered saliva, and a peace of mind finale
comes with a disgustingly disguising crook finger,
offering a taste of relief,
I will remember this story and clap my hands
and reach for the quill,
put down the temptation of the knife
and let it pour on to the paper
thus,
expiating and excavating and expectorating
sugary salty bile of
mine own self~hate
by whispering the magic of
Not Yet, Not Yet.*”
May 21, 2024, 3:00 p.m. ET New York Times
Finally Finding “The Magic”
Since childhood, I yearned for love. Once, I came within weeks of marriage before it abruptly fell apart. He said we were missing “the magic,” and, admittedly, he was right. A few men came and went. I’m now 59 with Stage 4 metastatic breast cancer. I still don’t have a partner, but I’ve fallen desperately in love with life. Exquisite beauty emerges everywhere: my cat on my lap, a cashier extending an unexpected smile, sunlight skipping across a lake. I use each day to soak up the world’s splendor. “Not yet,” I whisper to the heavens. “I love it here.” — Clare Cory
