She’s six,
She wants to play and run and with her friends freely mix,

She’s bright,
She wants to reach out to the dimly glowing tunnel of light,

She’s grateful,
She wants to be brave in the face of all that is fearfully fateful,

Imagine…

Pain, pain,

Pain that is so encrusted it eats into her tiny bones unseen,
Pain so heated it needs to be cooled with the kiss of morphine,

One lung sunken never again to flutter or rise,
The other coughs along over craggy cancer heights,

The luscious hair that was once her crown has been plucked away,
All her hair falling into the jealous grip of the dead and dying day,

There is a brain tumour that tick-tocks in the evening shadows,
In her sleep she whispers, “Tell aunty to bring me eyeshadows.”

A circle of spirals, a moonbeam,
She is one of us, what is life but a brief dream?