Before the tar ever touched my lips
I would pull my hair out strand by strand.
Lumps, lumps and clumps plastered to barber
floors and shower walls; I took my meals
as IVs, laid still in the bleach-doused
humming capsule of my room, waiting
to turn bald. Come devour me, Cancer!
Ride this path I've paved with ash to my
diseased lungs and strip away my hair
flung like so many dandelion stems
little squirming follicles, daisy
chains of dead hair shriveling away;
why not revel in the maggots when
all flesh ends up as white decay?
“Cancer” was printed in Ditch'em, No. 7 of Inwood Indiana. Pick up the paperback from Prolific Press; the stories and poems published online are free to read here.
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