~for cancer fighters and suvivors-also in memory of the many fearless girls i’ve met~

the fearless girl was born in a house with green shutters

and a boy who played basketball across the street

(she wasn’t born different)

and one day this fearless girl felt a pain

and the pain led to more pain

until she was loosing

h e r s e l f

and this girl felt the monster that showed up on her pet scan

settle into the home of her stomach

and let out a happy sigh

this fearless girl lived with a monster in her stomach

and this monster was determined

to make her waste away until she was so thin

that even the slightest breeze could make her

b l o w     a w a y

(she had to die for cancer to live)

and suddenly this fearless girl found herself

unable to see her fingers anymore

because her body was now 90% cancer

1% poetry

and 9% clear iv fluid

(is that 1% worth fighting for?)

and for the first few months a smile

dared to live on her freckled cheeks

but it too withered away along with this girl

without sunlight or fresh air to welcome

into her lungs

(she was always a fearless rose of a girl who needed photosynthesis to live happy)

and after a while this girl took a pair of the sharp medical scissors

and she let auburn curls form designs on her room tiles

as she clenched them in her fist and told herself

she could be not ok right now

this fearless girl felt like her body was a war ground

littered with empty atoms and burning chemicals

and she was not allowed to leave the white space of her bed

which was slowly sucking all the color

right out of this fearless girl

and she didn’t know if her 1% poetry would be enough anymore

because her belly was full of cancer

and her veins full of fluid and chemo

and she wasn’t a girl from a house with green shutters

or a out patient visiting the hospital because of stomach pains

or even a scared poetess

she was a girl who had 1% poetry inside of her

and a monster making home in her stomach

and this girl who was once called fearless

felt her it all slipping away

and she started to wish that she could be as small

as the cancer-free part of her seemed

and sink slowly into the clear liquid

that was in her iv bag.

because she wasn’t anything more than fearless

and some days it seemed like she wasn’t even that

she was only a girl who lived across the street from the boy who played basketball

and a girl who couldn’t find the words to write poetry anymore

(she once said a life without poetry wasn’t one worth living)

and one day she tried to see the stars outside of her hospital window

as this scared rose let it’s last scarred petal fall

and it was sick of trying to live in a world

without sunlight

(you have always been my sunlight, fearless girl.)

and this girl i like to call fearless

this poor rose who couldn’t adapt

the little girl who once learned basketball

so she could play with the boy across the street

and this sick almost-woman with 0.5% poetry inside of her

l e t      g o

(the monster read the words inscribed in the lining of her stomach; the 0.5% of poetry that this girl left as her final parting to the thing that killed her.)
that this girl left as her final parting)