A Broken Crow

five days.

six doses of cyclophosphamide. one dose of doxyrubin. one dose of vincristine. (pushed through in two syringes, vile, evil, red poison.) one hickman line insertion. one lumbar puncture. four doses of zofran. four doses of decadron. five doses of allopurinol.

eight solid meals.

seven codiene tablets. four ativan. one mild anxiety attack.

we watch three episodes of csi in a row. you adjust your bed between four and six times every hour. i can finish a crossword in under ten minutes. your iv makes that humming noise every twenty-eight seconds, then every eight, then twenty-eight, then eight. i wear your sweater and drink four cups of tea. (red rose, i cannot drink the shit they have in there, no matter how fucked up things are.)

i wake up a dozen times in the cot next to your bed and forget where i am. i read two hundred pages. i watch you sleep for five hours and take the time to say goodbye to your eyelashes. (i consider counting them.)

it's all happening and it's all real.
this dark. this pain.
(you know how much i fucking miss you, like i can't stand it, like i can't breathe, but it's better this way. my hands are clumsy and incapable for what's on the horizon)
it's strange to take comfort in the presence of strangers.
because it's not up to me i guess.
except that it is. it's up to me to smile and it's up to me to push and it's up to me to tie the loose ends so that you can focus on you and it's up to me to pick up all the shards that might cut you and it's up to me to find sunlight in the deepest darkest hell imaginable.
it's worse for you, obviously. because this is not about me, and i hate myself everytime i entertain the notion, but i can't help but be human. no one ever stops thinking about themselves, even when their lives are absorbed by helping others. it becomes just that. just thinking. just thought.
but it is so much worse for you. i have no illusions.
it's up to you to fight, believing that you know the outcome. good trumps evil. light swallows the dark and bathes everything in a soft pearly white. you beat cancer. you live. you live and so do i.

i can't even
i just
because it doesn't make sense anymore
it never
but now
i can't

is this fear? is this trauma?
or is this what it feels like to be completely without the luxury of denial?
you tell me doctor.
you tell me.

there is cancer and there is us.
in the middle, pushing out, making space that's clean and safe and ours.

round two.
i want so much to be brave.
i want so much.
i love you.

Iain Gillis -- [noun]: A hermit living in the big city 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Kathryn Crooks -- [adjective]: Visually addictive 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com