guardian...

i am a girl with a gun
cocked and ready to go
at a moments notice

rapid-fire speech like fireflies
on-off-on-off in the night

who would you have been
if you had been allowed 
to be somebody?

i am the guardian of
the memory of you
polished barrel
and happy trigger
we will never disappear

i know what i am...

I am a doormat.
I am the welcome mat you barely see but walk right over.

I am your doormat 
go ahead leave your dirt on me.

I am your doormat 
leave me out in the cold.

I am your doormat 
go ahead shake me clean because you’re having company.

I am your doormat 
I am raggedy and torn. 
Go ahead, replace me.

oxygen...

every part of you was made
for me.
your lips were made to
kiss mine,
your eyes were made to
wake up to me
looking at you
in my bed every morning,
and your fucking tongue was made
to roll my name off of it.
i am more certain of us
than i'm certain that 
i require oxygen to breathe.

life is not an easy class...

i know what sadness is, 
i know how it is to be hurt,
i know all of the most worst nightmares,
i know so many painful things 
and i don't even know why, 
but what i know now that keeps me alive.
because those storms in my life 
made me to the person i am today.
i'm a fighter,
i always was,
life is not an easy class.
you have to be broken
to wake up the power inside,
that will keep your head up
in the worst of times.
you have to believe 
and take a deep breath
but also remain confident and positive.
no matter what,
i never gave up
and i never will
because i know how it is
to be broken into pieces,
to pick them up 
and glue them together.
it takes time but i'm stronger than ever,
life made me this way.

flowers that grow in the dark...

They tell me that living is like this: bills, three square meals a day, a hobby, and more bills. Sleeping in a bed with someone every night for 50+ years. Never dreaming too big.

There is a beast in me that hungers for more, more meaning, more depth, more ocean. Something colorful and loud.

They tell me that living is like this: going on proper dates with proper people, waiting to say I love you, waiting to feel.

Give me the most violent love I can take. Give me God’s angry fire. I can’t survive on air. The words I never said will strangle me in my sleep. I refuse to die in such a quiet way.

its 2 am...

...and i wish i could get better

I have a headache growing at the front of my mind
and it’s whispering my name over and over again,
as if by repeating it excessively, it will no longer
mean anything and I will be wiped from existence.
Sometimes it just really sucks, feeling like
you don’t want to feel anymore and then your
body kind of just crumbles and falls to every
negative thought you’ve ever had.
I wish this type of pain didn’t exist but hey
it’s fucking life and I gotta deal.
But sometimes it’s so hard– I don’t even know,
will my smiles ever come without anchors
hanging off the corners of my lips?
It’s getting late, and I should be getting some
sleep– I just don’t know if I’ll want to get
up to kiss the sun tomorrow morning.
Fuck. One day, I’m going to hold the light
in my palms and it won’t be from cigarette butts.
I’m gonna make it out of this shithole– I’m going
to grow from this. Fuck the mentality of what if
it doesn’t get better. Fuck. I will break through
iron cages if I have to. I’m going to tear this dead
shell off of me like I was born to exfoliate.
See, I’m already making jokes. Fuck yeah, I’m
going to do this. I’m going to wake up to see
the sun rise. I’m going to get better. Fucking yes.

questions i wish i could ask you...

why are you avoiding me? why aren’t you returning my calls? why haven’t you been answering my texts?

why don’t you ever come around? why won’t you look me in the eye? why do i only ever see you in my dreams?

why do you always leave me? why do you always come back? why do you always say you love me despite it all?

shakieb orgunwall...

i tried to forget you.
i locked you out of my 
thoughts but you seem 
to carry a spare key. 
i've tried erasing your voice
but every songbird sounds
like it must've took
lessons from you.
every dust swirl and cloud puff
paints and portraits of your
face. 
every still stream
knits quilts of your
reflection on its watery
skin.

you were the sun and i
had been staring too
long. because every time
i blink you are still
all i see.

wait...

i will wait,
i am waiting,
and i will love you
with all the love
i possess
until this body
is ash
and i begin my search
for you 
again.

new treatment...

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved a new immunotherapy drug to treat advanced melanoma, signaling a paradigm shift in the way the deadly skin cancer is treated.

The drug, Keytruda (pembrolizumab), was tested on more than 600 patients who had melanoma that had spread throughout their bodies. Because so many of the patients in the early testing showed significant long-lasting responses, the study was continued and the FDA granted the drug “breakthrough therapy” status, allowing it to be fast-tracked for approval.

The largest Phase 1 study in the history of oncology, the research was conducted at UCLA and 11 other sites in the U.S., Europe and Australia.

Keytruda, formerly known as MK-3475, is an antibody that targets a protein called PD-1 that is expressed by immune cells. The protein puts the immune system’s brakes on, keeping its T cells from recognizing and attacking cancer cells, said Dr. Antoni Ribas, the study’s principal investigator and a professor of medicine in the division of hematology-oncology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

For many years, when using immunotherapy to fight cancer, doctors’ strategy has been to bolster the immune system so it could kill the cancer cells. But the approach had limited success because PD-1 prevented the immune system from becoming active enough to attack the cancer.

Keytruda, in effect, cuts the brake lines, freeing up the immune system to attack the cancer.

“This drug is a game changer, a very significant advance in the treatment of melanoma,” said Ribas, who also is a researcher at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. “For patients who have not responded to prior therapies, this drug now provides a very real chance to shrink their tumors and the hope of a lasting response to treatment.”

Judith Gasson, senior associate dean for research at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and director of the Jonsson Cancer Center, said researchers have long hoped to develop an effective and lasting immunotherapy to fight cancer.

“We have long believed that harnessing the power of our own immune systems would dramatically alter cancer treatment,” she said. “Based upon work conducted over the past two decades, we are beginning to see the clinical benefits of this research in some of the most challenging cancers.”

Generally, about 1 in 10 patients responded to previous immunotherapy drugs. Some of those who responded, however, exhibited long-lived benefits, which sustained scientists’ interest in the method as an effective mechanism to fight cancer.

The response and duration rates for Keytruda were much greater than for previous drugs, Ribas said. In the new study, 72 percent of patients responded to the drug, meaning that their tumors shrank to some degree. Overall, 34 percent of patients showed an objective response, meaning that their tumors shrank by more than 30 percent, and did not re-grow.

Ribas said Keytruda has the potential to be used to treat other cancers that the immune system can recognize, including cancers of the lung, bladder, head and neck.

Survivors’ stories Kathy Thomas, 59, of Torrance, California, was diagnosed in September 2011 with melanoma that had spread to her liver and was invading her left breast. She underwent several therapies that did not work, and she was weakening fast.

“I lost weight. I threw up nearly every day,” Thomas said. “My hair was thinning. I just had no strength at all. I was so sick I had to use a wheelchair.”

Thomas met with Ribas in 2012 but was skeptical about enrolling in a trial to test an experimental therapy. She soon overcame her hesitation.

“I decided I wanted to survive,” she said. “I wasn’t going to let this disease beat me.”

Since enrolling in the study, Thomas’ tumors have shrunk. She regained her strength and her appetite. She’s out of her wheelchair and walking normally again. She said she has experienced no side effects from the therapy, and she travels monthly to San Francisco to visit her grandson.

“I just enjoy life now, really enjoy it,” she said.

Watch Kathy Thomas discuss her therapeutic experience:http://youtu.be/BOgw7mgQEdc

Tom Stutz, 74, of Sherman Oaks, California, was diagnosed in June 2011 with melanoma that had spread to his lung, liver and other parts of his body. He didn’t see how he could survive, but he decided to enroll in the clinical trial of Keytruda anyway.

“I wasn’t eating. I was on oxygen. I couldn’t walk,” he said. “When I went into the hospital at the end of May [2012], I didn’t think I was coming out.”

Gradually, though, Stutz started feeling better. Today, he’s no longer on oxygen and walks several miles every day.

“It’s the little things that make me happy now,” Stutz said. “I’m very appreciative that I get to get up in the morning, go into my backyard and see my garden. I’m able to be with my children and grandchildren, go on vacations with them. I was close to the end of the road, as far as you can get to the edge of the cliff, and I was pulled back by this treatment.”

Watch Tom Stutz discuss his therapeutic experience: http://youtu.be/-HV2W5XrOZY

Melanoma incidence rates have been increasing for at least 30 years. An estimated 76,100 new cases of melanoma will be diagnosed in the U.S. in 2014, and nearly 10,000 Americans will die from the disease this year. While melanoma accounts for less than 2 percent of all skin cancer cases, it is responsible for the vast majority of skin cancer deaths, according to the American Cancer Society.