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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdXrk9ji4iQ

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Two summers ago

I worked a casual position at an inner-city hospital.

Casual, but over an eight month period

I worked so much overtime

that it gave the veteran, twenty

year nurses, pause.

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I saw my fair share, there.

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I learned that cancer patients come

in three varieties:

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                The first, strolls into the waiting room, whistling

                almost, has all of their hair, a curious

                kind of apprehension but

   also

                an imperturbable sense of confidence

                as though they knew

                everything in the world to be by design

                and that they’d inevitably be alright.

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                The second variety, did not have all of their hair.

                They wore baseball caps, oddly set bandages,

                jean jackets; their faces would be emaciated,

                sick from radiation, chemo, oxy, benzodiazepines,

                and everything about their demeanor

                told you

                that they were in great, bone rattling pain.

                However, despite the pain,

   and the complexion,

                and the eyesockets,

                and the bandages covering ungodly sores,

                they had this kind of dignity about them;

                they’d walk in, straight backed, proud,

                wait patiently for their appointment

                and make pained, suffering friends

                with all those in the lobby that shared their disposition.

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                The last kind, had almost all of these same features,

                but had vastly different temperaments.

                These were the ones that broke your heart to be with;

                the ones that cried out for a blanket, for a hand to squeeze,

                chocolate.

                The ones that wanted chocolate, were the ones that were dying;

                they were the ones where the cancer had rooted deep, or wide,

                that attacked the marrow, or an array of organs at once.

                These were the ones whose medications were killing them

                as much as the cancer was, but

                due to the severity of the disease,

                were without any better form of treatment

                and therefore, no other option but to suffer.

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It was hard to see hope, in that last variety, but

to the best of my knowledge, hope

was the only real treatment for them.

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Even if it wasn’t the hope that they’d survive,

or that the suffering served a purpose, hope

was what I tried to give them.

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A blanket, a hand on a back, chocolate,

and a pair of knowing, hazel eyes

behind a pair of wide, square glasses,

that sat on the nose

of a knowing twenty-eight year old - 

former-alcoholic - with a left arm

that was missing and that understood

exactly what it meant

to have good years of your life

robbed from you, and for death

to already

be tallying up your ticket.

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I don’t know if it helped, really, or

if it made much of a difference, 

but I had the aching suspicion

that seeing someone who’d experienced

inhuman unfairness, that’d survived,

recovered, and was now speaking to them

in a gravelly, understanding tone …

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I don’t know,

the arrogant part of me wants to think it helped.

But, in any case, I never got the chance to find out.

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