Sitting in a death chair at the Cleveland Cancer
Center whilst my body is being pumped with platinum
grade-A poison. The six hours of infusion will
commence this stupor of compounding banality,
like Lennon’s A Day In The Life, with its ushering
and heightening symphony, I laugh to keep from
crying, warding off the melancholy with my humor.
The withdrawn looks of other cancer victims immediately
suffocates any advantageous thoughts you conjure to
ease the discomfort of dying. The book I've brought
to attempt to peruse this six-hour marathon never moves
pass the first page, every thought is ambushed by no
collective attention, my mind fidgets like a 6-year-old kid
with ADHD, can't find that entrance to presume.
The spark-up conversations are often mumbled
soliloquies, for no one wants to waste their inviable
energy on meaningless confabulations. Less energy
is the by-product of Chemo, they bake you outside
with radiation and cook you inside with this
Chemo-anti-freeze.
Yet, I dispose of any negative potency, I won’t
let the death salesman in today. Cancer is the
Hall of Fame of diseases, cancer is the deadly
Champion.
I press my luck with each passing nurse who
flaunts her delicate frame near me, my subtle
sexual innuendos may be flat-lining but I'm
not dead yet.
Fear is the host of anxiety, and entertains
an agglomerate of distress. Hold your line,
don't budge, and never give up. So many
just surrender and head to their graveyards.
Not me, I'm a gambler, and I'm riding on
this 100-1 shot all the way.