A body can waste away quietly, carrying an enemy in its blood.
It doesn’t want to fight; it wants to toil skin-deep in the blood.
For years, weeds grew in my stomach, a slow, calculating crawl.
When it was born, its umbilical cord was coated in fear and blood.
I can’t call my doctors heroes; their dismissive cackling gave them away. Doctors are only heroic when it’s not a Black or Brown woman’s blood.
Shadows are more comforting than sunshine when you cling to the grace of machines.
The nurse whispered the four gospels of the New Testament as she drew my blood.
During treatment, instead of praying, I muttered my eulogy under my breath.
On Sundays, God tells me to eat His Son’s body and drink His Son’s blood.
My beloved held me while the doctor carved a chemo portal above my breast.
The ceiling played “Funeral” by Band of Horses as the gauze soaked the blood.
My five-year-old daughter asked if the cancer was turning me into a unicorn.
The only magical thing about cancer is how two poisons can live in the blood.
The lady from the billing department shouted pay your balance or no brain scan.
She kept asking me to spell my name, so I spelled out R - o - c - í - o in blood.
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