The tumor presses you close
as a tango dancer. You feel it
between your shoulder blades
and in the small of your back
as it steers you along. Removing it
would mean a bloody unravel,
your whole body rent in your cure.
You could steep yourself
in a toxic cocktail, but it’s not certain
to buy you time. Nor are you given
to magical thinking. Positivity
alone cannot shrink this invader.
It’s too late for that. You look
for yourself in the faces
of your support group, trying
to gauge whether wisdom lies
in your mutual confession of fear.
Maybe it’s better to deny
what’s amiss for as long
as you are able. Or to recast
your metastasis as a mad
celebration of surfeit.
READ MORE
This is how Cambridge Analytica’s Facebook model really worked – according to the person who built it [Nieman Lab]
What to look for in your Facebook data – and how to find it [WIRED]
Devon Balwit is a writer/teacher from Portland, OR. Her poems have appeared here as well as in The New Verse News, Rattle, Redbird Weekly Reads, Rise-Up Review, Rat’s Ass Review, The Rising Phoenix Review, Mobius, What Rough Beast, and more.
Image via https://shopcatalog.com/.
