Part I
I miss you, even though you visit me and you’re dead. It’s been a year since cancer ate up your bones. There is no more blood for end-of-life nosebleeds. “Take mushrooms, they’ll help you sleep better,”you said to me on your deathbed.
Reishi mushroom is the only thing that soothes my plummeting estrogen and calms my fried nerves.
You live on somewhere in my body.
At bedtime, you instruct me to place my hands on a churning gut and worn-out heart; rest, you murmur.
Night after night, you find me in the ethers of eternity and bless me with your friendship.
Part II
There is no end to what you meant to me, to what you mean to me. The least I can do is Uber Eats for your teenage daughter, who will be motherless in a few weeks, days, or hours.
Part III
Does everyone get cancer now? Is there any way not to get cancer? Are we a cancer to the earth? Where does cancer end, and where do we begin? Does imperialism cause cancer? Does cancer cause cancer?
Part IV
I eat cancer every day. I lather it on my body after a hot shower, before binge-watching reality TV—a type of cancer.
Part V
A small piece of cheese with a slice of apple before bed reminds me of my father, who died of bone cancer. As a child, when I complained that I was hungry long after bedtime, he’d creep into my room and give me Triscuit crackers and a glob of old fort cheese on a chipped plate. Most of his words felt like cancer. I nibbled the snack under the covers and felt comforted, especially after his best friend raped me.
Part VI
Rape is cancer, too.
