Hey again. So my school is hosting their annual writing festival and this year I decided to enter. I entered the poem division. This poem means a lot to me because I had to dig deep and peel back wounds I forced myself to forget from years ago. But it was all worth it to be able to share my story in creative writing and help others know that they are not alone when battling any form of sickness or disease. So here is my poem, The Bracelet.
The bracelet.
The bracelet that keeps me up at night.
The bracelet that takes me back to 2018
The year I put that bracelet on for the first time
I had no idea that bracelet would stick to my wrist for 3 years
Stuck with pool water from swimming
And dirt from playing outside
Except this wasn’t the case
Instead my bracelet was stuck with the tears from watching my brothers swim
And the pain from the IV´s doesn’t compare to watching my friends play outside without me
When I looked around at school
I never saw anyone with a bracelet
I saw happy kids playing
I saw healthy kids laughing
Why not me?
Instead of hearing the school bell ring
I heard the awful ringing sounds from the MRI machine
Instead of having a christmas party with my class, I was crying in the nurse’s office
That bracelet may have been clasped around my wrist in 2018
But it had been there since the day I was born
I was born 1 in 100,000
1 in 100,000 people a year are born with AVMs
That nasty, long, word abbreviated on my bracelet stands for Arteriovenous Malformation
And Less than 1% of the population understood what that word meant
So many surgeries
So many MRI´s
So many labs
But over the course of almost 5 years
My avm got smaller
The knot of arteries and veins in my brain shrunk
And shrunk
And shrunk
To the point where it was so small that I could take off the bracelet
The worn down
Discolored
Medical Alert Bracelet
Over those 5 years the font on the back of the bracelet got smaller and smaller
Those phone numbers and medical instructions slowly faded
But they never truly went away
I no longer wear that bracelet because my condition is no longer fatal
But it will always be there
It will always be a concern
Just like how that bracelet will forever be locked around my wrist
Even though I can’t see it
And you can’t either
It will always be there
All those surgeries will be there
All the doctors appointments will be there
All the tears will always be there
Just because I removed the bracelet
Doesn’t mean I removed everything it did to me.