when they told me it could be cancer + blåtimen
when they told me it could be cancer
blåtimen
this hospital is a bathtub of frigid water.
by which i mean, it is the open sea
and this bed is sinking.
by which i mean, my teeth are chattering,
and the waves are like jaws.
jeg fryser her.
my grandmother would never throw anything away:
scraps of wrapping paper ironed and re-used,
half-eaten apples put back in the fridge
on a porcelain plate,
three spoons of leftover
pasta sauce in a container in the freezer,
this was a symptom of the war
that she never managed to shake;
a desire to hold on to everything
that flows like a river
through our family.
what would she say to me now
that she is gone,
if she knew that even illness
is something i cannot let go of?
that i spend the days of my youth
in doctor’s offices,
throwing them all away?
the nurses bring me yoghurt,
and i eat half
and save the rest for later.
jeg er så ensom.
i often think about my grandmother
and how she would pile spoonfuls
of sugar on top of her summer strawberries,
submerging the red jewels in heavy cream.
or the way she would disappear
in her own hospital bed,
and only return to herself
when she could come home again.
i should’ve asked her questions,
asked her to teach me
how to navigate
a life, a body
deconstructed.
wish she was here so i could tell her
i hate that i never feel closer to her
than when i am sick and in pieces,
the memory of her mind,
in the end,
fragmented,
a mirror of my own brokenness,
so sharp it could cut us all open.
jeg vet at jeg er sterk.
men jeg føler meg svak her inne.
many centuries ago,
my family began in the small coastal
town of hvitsten,
carving blocks of ice from the oslofjord
and hauling them away on ships and sleds
to be sold.
and i remember
the first time
i felt the water hold me
like it was floating inside of me
and not me in it.
i remember walking down to the little beach
at hittut,
my grandma’s hands
full of boller, smør og brunost.
all of us there, together
sharing and sunbathing
on the grey ocean rocks by the fjord.
i was so afraid of slipping,
as if falling in the water meant drowning,
and not coming home.
det jeg frykter mest
er å være syk resten
av livet.
when i was six,
i pretended i was a fish on land,
somewhere i didn’t belong—
and hit my head on the rocks
the way i had always feared.
everywhere, there was blood
turning into water,
my grandmother
screaming,
her gentle hands gripping my forehead,
trying to keep it inside of me,
my hair like stained barbed wire.
born out of ice
and blood,
first shattered did i understand
who i was.
jeg prøver å tenke på en
fremtid jeg kan bære.
i was named
after my grandmother,
but i never wore that name.
as long as she was here,
i didn’t need it.
now it cloaks me
in sorrow
and haunting.
in the hospital,
i count the ceiling tiles
and my mind is empty.
is this how she felt,
is this just another way
i can be like her?
i want to see the water
as spilled strawberry wine,
flowing red,
red as dirt, as blood, as heart,
and not broken,
not killing us,
not an ocean
swallowing our tears.
jeg padler ut i vannet under begravelsen.
blomstrene en sirkel.
our family has grown so far apart
since my grandmother left.
i wonder, if a hospital is an iceberg
coming between us,
will my own illness
be a capsizing?
the water asks,
will you ever sail my fjords
like a family again?
and i don’t
know.
jeg tenker kun på sorg
og hvordan man kan
komme forbi det
one day when i come home from the hospital,
my grandfather puts his hand over mine
and says,
remember?
the time your head was bleeding
like a broken heart
and you survived?
my torso is a bridge
between generations of water
and draught.
like my grandmother,
i could never let it go.
he tells me to remember,
and i try.
i return to my vacated name,
to the blue hours of hvitsten
when the sun has sunk below the hills
and the sky is not yet dark,
the ocean’s color seeping into everything
and i visit my grandmother’s grave
in the wildflowers
and i ask about a body whose water
never drowns me in my sleep
and i wonder if something built of ice
will ever be unfrozen
and i try to be okay with the falling
and i no longer think itʻs so hard to stay
and i
Kira Santana (she/her) currently lives on the island of O‘ahu, where she is a graduate student, poet, and hula dancer. Her work is deeply influenced by Hawaiian culture and its natural beauty, as well as her experiences with chronic illness, and her childhood growing up in Norway. Her poetry and essays have been published in magazines and journals, such as Collision Literary Magazine, the Mangrove Journal, Snapdragon: A Journal of Art & Healing, Allegory Ridge, and Anuenue Review, where she has served as poetry editor. Kristin received the 2019 Myrle Clark Award for Creative Writing, in 2022 she was given the Hemingway Award, and in 2020, she was honored for her work in Creative Writing at the University of Hawai‘i’s undergraduate showcase “English Represents!”