~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)
