Jay Erickson, Partner, Health & Wellness Lead, Modus
BLOOM is an illustrated book of poetry with origins in Jay Erickson’s experience of cancer diagnosis and treatment. Welcome to the reading of poem #17.
Dear Cancer
why are you here?
what have I done?
whom did I wrong?
or do you come like the dust
that settles on the windowsill
with no agenda?
Dear Cancer,
you have to leave now
you have the wrong address,
bad data, error copying file
your work is done
let me show you to the door
Dear Cancer,
you have taught me so much
grown my heart even
as you have shrunk
shone a light across my life even
as you have been diminished by it
Dear Cancer,
have you met my doctor?
well, he knows you…
…watch your back Jack
Dear Cancer,
I respect you
I fear you
you are ancient
you are sly
but I will bend
and breathe and
enlist an army
of peaceful warriors
and I will not break
let yourself be carried
out in this tide of
white light and love
gathered to meet you
Dear Cancer,
f**k you
Dear Cancer,
be an emigrant of this body
there is no room for you here
Dear Cancer,
can you hear me?
Dear Cancer,
what are you?
you are of me, from me
yet you invade me
are you a random number
expressing yourself itself
are you a midwife
come to bring some newness forth?
are you the crack in the sky
I heard when i was young?
are you grief made manifest?
or a weight balancing some
unknown measure?
are you a lesson, a message, a dream,
a phantom, a nudge, a regime,
a fire, a flood, a call,
an evil, a consequence, an invitation,
an ending, a beginning?
Dear Cancer,
get your goddamn hands
off of Maria and my other
chemo buddies
Dear Cancer,
you are packing your bags
and finding your way out
no need to write back
I don’t want to distract
you any more
Goodbye
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