It’s funny
how sickness
seeps
into the body.
How it can sink lines deep into skin stretched
tight over the bones
and leave
a hollow shadow of the beauty that once was.
You were never healthy, new whole
in my childlike eyes.
But I suppose that’s what happens to those
whose histories are darker than the night
sky.
You always smiled.
And that felt like a guiding light
when there was nothing around but pain and
hurt.
You weren’t the moon – the moon is too
steady, too silent, too secretive.
You were a star that taught the universe
how to shine.
So, now you know how hard it is when someone
you’ve followed behind like a lost little
lamb
starts to crumble and fold into his body
like a discarded paper.
I watched the wind carry you away.
I wonder
what words whirled through your mind
when you walked away from those
white painted walls and the
stomach churning smell of life and death.
How does it feel to know you can count
the number of days left to live
on the nails of your shrivelled fingertips?
It’s funny
how sickness
seeps
into the body.
I tried to cling to your chest and never let
go.
But the poison wrapped around your limbs
until there was nothing to do but yield,
to absorb the killer that turned laughter
to hacking coughs, that forced blood
from your body and made my heart cry.
Poison that stained the nights we would
curl up on the sofa together. You’d always
been a warm shelter from the monsters
of the night that danced in the pale moonlight.
But then your softness became the edges
of bone, and I felt like the monster had become
you.
I heard the retching in the bathroom
that you tried to mute. How you would
choke up your sanity, your lungs,
your life and everything that made you Y O
U
until the tubes pressed into your skin
were all that kept your breathing going.
Tears couldn’t make it better
but we tried anyway.
You were still eaten away.
It’s funny
how sickness
seeps
into the body.
How it lingers, even when the game is dead
and won.
Looking out a window and watching the eyes
watching you – crossing their bodies
as if we carried a curse. I didn’t think
broken hearts and a coffined corpse
deserved that much attention.
I never saw your face again, not limp
not lifeless not lost. I remembered
sitting on your knee, jokes, memories
before the storm of cancer, cold ground
and cries clouded my brain.
I remembered the times before you moved
from memory to body, from body
to dried bone.
It’s funny
how sickness
seeps
into the body
and dissolves
with the
help of time.
I still come to visit. I write to you
and slide the letters into the soil.
I leave
kisses, laughs, jokes.
And even though all those years ago
I was tired of feeling left behind,
feeling pain and burning tears. Now...
Now I softly sing, I softly sigh
and then I begin
to slowly cry.
