"The white fathers told us, "I think, therefore, I am" and the black mother within each of us – the poet – whispers in our dreams, I feel, therefore I can be free."- Audre Lorde

Monday, June 14, 2010

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.

1 comment:


snail coitus makes me smile