The lymphoma suckled
from a radioactive teat,
becoming spinach-green,
a tank full of rage, a continent
of muscle, bigger than I expected,
ready to smash my lymph nodes
and rampage through my body
like a video game with all cheats enabled.
Nothing could whisper it down
to human-size: not the sound of my mother
crying into an empty room, not
the absence of a father to his son,
not the kindness of doe-faced nurses.
What was needed were drugs
more powerful than a cosmic spaceman –
enough to pound it like dough,
reshape, shrink, repeat, repeat, repeat
until the patient is floating in a shadow
the size of the hospital ward,
and the only thing that can trigger it
back to the point of an emerald monster
with a monsoon temper is losing
a world as delicate as a butterfly
on the tip of a crocodile’s snout.
(Genre: dark)
WILDsound Writing Festival 