Family of Anomalies

We are a family of medical anomalies,

stitched together not by blood,

but by scars—shared pain, shared stories,

and the unrelenting hum of hospital machines.

We are the ones who sit in waiting rooms,

arms linked by invisible threads of understanding,

while the world outside moves on,

ignorant to the battles fought in these quiet halls.

One by one, I watch my friends—my family—

slip away.

Not always to the same thief,

but always to the same indifference.

The system, built for the "normal,"

for the "fixable,"

fails them,

fails us.

I see their strength crumble,

their bodies wither,

their voices fade,

while the world scrolls past their obituaries

as if they were just another headline.

When will it be my turn?

When the time comes,

will anyone care?

Will they mourn the way my laugh echoes in the room,

the way I lit up when I spoke of hope,

or will I be reduced to just another "too complex" case,

tossed aside by a system that was never built to hold me?

Will they remember me as a warrior?

Or will my fight, my exhaustion,

be forgotten in the sea of survivors

who are glorified for beating what I never could?

Society loves a survivor’s story—

a triumph, a cure, a comeback.

But where is the love for those of us in the limbo?

The in-between?

Not beating it, not succumbing,

just existing in this perpetual war.

Where is the recognition for the ones

whose battle is not a sprint,

but an unending marathon?

And those who lose?

Who couldn’t claw their way out of the quicksand,

who slipped beneath the tide?

They are not failures.

They are not weak.

They are warriors, too.

But their stories are whispered,

not shouted.

Their names fade into shadows,

while the world claps for survivors.

We are a family of anomalies,

of fighters,

of mourners,

of ghosts.

We hold each other up as we crumble,

we cry for the ones we lose,

even as we fear the day it’ll be us.

When my turn comes,

remember me,

not for surviving,

not for succumbing,

but for enduring.

Because here in the limbo,

we are still alive.

We are still here.

And that,

that is its own kind of triumph.

-Giusiana