Are you tired of pinkwashing and inspiration porn? This is the post for you!

October is a tough month for me. I am excited to be working with a number of great charities. I am thrilled to have a new career as a poet. But this is only because I have metastatic breast cancer.

My social media feeds are full of heartwarming stories of cancer survivors and warriors. Companies leap on the promotional bandwagon, flogging bright pink T-shirts. Pink boxing gloves?! As if it’s a fair fight!

The problem is my cancer is anything but pink. It’s brown, green, purple. My mood today is black.

Social media sends me into a negative tailspin about why people aren’t reading my post or liking my poem.

I won’t be ringing a bell, getting a boob job or running a marathon to celebrate being cancerfree. I’ll have cancer until it kills me. The number of people bothering to check how I’m doing has dwindled. But I’ve still got cancer. The average survival rate for metastatic breast cancer is just three years. I can’t talk about someone else getting better without crying. How selfish!

I know the lack of questions is partly because I hate being asked! Please still ask!!! I’ve stopped hardcore chemo but am entirely drug-dependent to stay alive.

I’m still struggling with medication side effects, not wanting to make a fuss, but needing to be cared about. I’m irrepressible thoughts of death Barbie!

Why don’t you put that on a T-shirt?!