four days with god

Thursday
i am
with fists
clenched pounding
on your legs
like towers
they loom high
below
i lay small
by your feet
crying, punching, cursing
those legs
all i can reach.

Friday
i am with absence
on a bed
arms crossed
door closed
distance for spite
silent but you hear
your ear to the door
i left you
crying on the other side.

Saturday

Asleep

with breath

i scream

in sleep
I hate you

but you creep in

and kneel

on those knees

that were always too tall to see

you kneel by the bed

i swore you from

and with one big hand

you gently sweep one small strand

of hair from my eye

and kiss my head.

Sunday

You drink orange juice

while i pace

wondering how many oranges

it takes

to quench you.

you stand

i sit

and once more

your legs

are all i see.

.my god,my god.

.

found

I was five

the first time they found

cancer

in her body

they found it

in a freckle

the one i use to talk to

by her belly button

they found it

and i found her

crying as she brushed her

long blond hair

crying as it fell out

clump

after clump

after clump.

screaming

alone

in her room

with a fist full

of golden locks.

strand after beautiful strand

tangled tightly around the shower drain

lying mockingly by her pillow

wound painfully amid the bristles

of a brush soon deemed enemy.

I remember chemo was the word that

made it real

as if it took baldness and vomit

to remind us all

she was dying inside.

I remember she let me touch her head

afterwards

and it felt like a kiwi

I remember not knowing

how not be to afraid.

I remember when I found him,

my dad

sobbing quietly on the bathroom floor.
I never told him

I saw

his tears then for the first

and last time.

He never found me

watching

through the creak of the door

and they never found me

hiding under their bed

as my mom would

pray and vomit

with violent sorrow

for hope to find.

hope

to find.

They found more cancer in her

yesterday

not for the first, or second or even third time

they found it

after
An 18 year struggle

after an 18 year fight

and still its the word chemo

that scares me

and still it's the thought of my mommy's own baldness

that makes me shake with fear

because its this that

visually and constantly remindes me

that the cancer is real.

and still

you do not find me

hiding.

mourning.

waiting

beneath the bed

it is me

i now find

praying and vomiting
in violent sorrow

desperate

desperate

for hope

to be found.

This time coming home meant leaving it behind.