the best kind of cancer you can get

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the best kind of cancer you can get

that’s what they say, the doctors.

like the best way to split your lip (on the edge of a foil yogurt top)

or the best weather in which to have a mental break (when the sun is out, but behind some clouds)

or the best kind of nausea (at home, with no dry heaves)

or the best room in which to find your spouse cheating on you (in the garage)

or the best limb to be malformed (the arm, the left one)

or the best rug on which to overflow your toilet (brown, non-shag)

the best of the worst.

that’s what we’re down to.

and, i suppose, that’s what we’ll take.

the best of the worst.

and maybe it is.

but to me
the best kind of cancer
is the kind of cancer
you can write about
and hug over
and eat your first meat in 10 years because of
and hear from people around the world about
and inspire some to give blood because of
and hold your child and laugh during
and drink yoohoo throughout
and live through.

and live through.

——-

my friend carley wrote me about a poem she found.
the saddest poem ever, she said, about a monkey and child soldier.

i’m caught
between wanting
to hear the saddest poem
and feeling
like i’ve already heard it.

like i’m writing it right now,
or as if i’m in the saddest poem in the world.
in a line or even maybe a whole stanza.

and there’s a sign saying:
keep your arms and feet (your heart, your fear) inside
the poem
at all times.

i am not a monkey, but maybe lydia is.
and maybe the child soldier is our dead baby.

or maybe i am the child soldier and leanne is the monkey
with tubes coming out of her arms.

or maybe lydia is both.
both the monkey
and the child soldier.

and we are watching, from behind a fence.

———–

last night, i have to tell you this:
lydia looked at leanne and said:

mommy, if you die,
you die.

then turned around and stomped away
and went back to jumping off her bed.

just like that.

we don’t know where it came from.
any of this.

leanne cried.
she felt it was an act
of meanness.

i felt it was an act
of grace, an attempt of assuaging.

lydia had watched bambi earlier in the day
with her aunt nancy.

aunt nancy, whose father died of cancer.

bambi, whose mother dies
and leaves her
in a meadow.

——–

i want to wake up too.
we all do.
i want to wake up as much as i want
to go
to sleep.

—–

(note: please don’t comment on this post in any sort of “it’s ok” way, or say anything to leanne about what lydia said. please don’t try and interpret it or make it ok or not ok. this is not what we need. we just need to be heard.

so hear us.)

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