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Nikita Sep 2020
When I grew up. I thought that to be respected, I needed to be strong. As hard as nails.

I believed that aggression was my friend, a friend that protected me from men.

Aggression was never a friend, just a women desperate for control. Over time she became a cancer, eating away at my sanity.

She brought chaos and raged storms when she was unsure of what to do.

When she is calm, she draws me detailed pictures of suicide and sings me sweet songs of deceit.

If only setting her free was something I was strong enough to do.
Mark Toney Oct 2019
24
24 begins with its cruel rule:
"No sustenance or quenching of thirst
until the sad/happy day passes."

Caring women with initials enter
Poking, prodding, asking the same questions,
While loved ones nervously watch.

Close friends, friends, and strangers
Phone and visit, offering their comforting words.
"We love you."  "We're praying for you."
"Make a pact with God."  "Chin up!"  "Happy Birthday!"

Their messages intermingle with disquieting thoughts
Of hopes and dreams left unfulfilled.
"Why me?"  "What now?"  "I knew it was too good to be true."
As hunger gnaws, and expectation is postponed.

A caring woman with initials enters one last time,
Poking, prodding, asking the same questions,
As the pushers of the bed arrive with their benign smiles.

Unwanted darkness returns,
As uncommon mortals work at their bizarre craft,
Opening the golden bowl,
Exposing its precious contents.

East and West Coast loved ones,
Separated by time and circumstance,
Carry on their prayerful vigil.

As 24 continues,
Surrounded by love,
Sustained by hope.
4/26/2018 - Poetry form: Free Verse - A friend's daughter was diagnosed with a brain tumor at the age of 23.  The day surgery was scheduled just happened to be on her 24th birthday.  She was supposed to be taken into surgery early in the morning, but she had to wait all day until mid-afternoon before they finally took her.  All that time she couldn't eat or drink anything.  Friends and relatives from the East Coast to California were wishing her a happy birthday and a successful surgery.  Emotions ran high.  It was very surreal.  When they finally took her to surgery we didn't know if she would live or die.  Thankfully, the surgery was successful.  I wrote this poem for her that same night after I left the hospital. - Copyright © Mark Toney | Year Posted 2018
Amy E Mar 2019
Cage affixed to my head
Needle stuck in my vein
You must not move an inch
My dear, you're still allowed to
Breathe.

Quiet, frantic heart.
You’re causing me to
Shake.
I know it’s strange and loud and dim
But listen. Hear that soft
Music

Dare you not sneeze
Or scratch that itch now
Rest your eyes, close your shutters
Lie still as a corpse, just one more half-hour

Bang. Crash. Wail.
Please stop, my skull aches
How cool the serum flows
Perhaps the music found my clothes
and ushered me on home

The doctor calls to me now -  mouth dry
Let us discuss your brain.
Inside a tumor lies, no surprise,
Allow me to explain
This lump, it sleeps, 'tis quite petite
And most believably benign.
Ana S Apr 2018
Trembling beneath my hands
If I could I would rip it out of you,
Your pain, your cries,
But the tumor metastasizes.

Tumor never die.
Tumor holding on tight,
Tight to the very foundation of our lives,
You.

You are everything,
The first and my last each day,
The distant prays all aimed towards you,
Let him be okay,

Trembling beneath my hands,
Holding tight unable to release,
The tumor clinging to you from beneath.
I'm Scared
saranade Nov 2017
I sang to you, my son, until I ran out of breath
And sang to you again as I gave you to death.
I've been stuck in house arrest
Because I've given you to death.
I declare my degree in your grief
But I sing to you...
"I-I-I have never lo-o-oved someone,
the wa-ay I love you-u-u"

A lament for your bending brain descent
With energy so pure, unsure and in the moment
With disorient movement on legs bent
Or were they wings?
It was hard to tell on the descent.

Yet, something eternal was created
At your birth and at your death
Your heart was too big for your chest
We wept together over it,
Over your death,
As there was no preparation for the separation
Your rotation of cognation
Gives formation to an ideation if...
You... You ever were
Or I... I ever was?

Disposessed words in the world we'd imagined
Obtained and ingrained love in our intestines
Our black will eventually turn to grey
The grey will one day go away
Just as blood dries and becomes sparks
It parks inside eyes to become stars
And the love we lasted long enough to receive
Becomes songs in energy I sing
From my throat
From my hand to your coat, I bathe you
I soak you with my love... a baptismal
     ... like never before and ...
As you drown under, you wonder
If you... You ever were
Or I... I ever was.
Death. Euthanasia. I had to say goodbye to my wire fix terrier.
sarah s Jun 2017
there is only melting
melting from one day to the next
melting into each moment, to the point where
i don’t realize i’m doing something until i’m almost done with it and asking myself
“how did i even get here, to the kitchen sink to wash these dishes i was going to wash five hours ago?”
and then i remember
i actually got out of bed and walked downstairs
i am losing my mind
it’s a sickness like a tumor on the side of my soul
this came from a small essay i wrote myself a few months ago when i was in a deep depression. it was its own paragraph but i chopped it up a bit and took some things out to form it into a poem
Zero Nine Mar 2017
Long ago love looked like romance
it held a subtle sheen of madness
Chaos and passion left in pair
Our beds lie oceans apart
My heart can't swim the carpet
In the night we camped the platform
I hadn't yet bought matches
as the smoke was yet to lick me
inside my virginal lungs
My heart grows tumescent, we
never sat close to view forever
in the dusk of violet July
To fulfill happiness fully
suppose we just kiss goodbye forever
and bare the carpet to cement
May some poor soul once more find
their face between too hairy legs
and with my chin I'd trace constellations
Sail our beds both furthest apart
Sail our beds into the dark
In the violet July
Miranda Leigh Apr 2016
Her blood is cyanide
She cannot seem to hide
She is light as helium
She's strong as aluminum
She is graphite carbon
As subdued as boron
Abundant as hydrogen
But toxic as nitrogen
She's precious as platinum
Her skin is thallium
In her lungs there is radon
She is as rare as xenon
Helpful as iodine
Whose life is astatine's
She is soft as lithium
Her eyes are beryllium
There is nothing I can do
Already the tumor grew
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