Don't tell me you believe
that vitamin C in an IV
will cure anything until you've been
crying by a dead child's
side and it's made you decide
at nine years old
that you will spend your life
finding a cure before any more
people you love lie hooked
up to food tubes
morphine titrating
venous dreams by their bedside.
Don't tell me those
expensive diets
or money making schemes mean
anything until you've
slept in hospital wards on floors
or sometimes an armchair
praying to a God you know
isn't there.
Don't tell me the answer is there to find,
that I just haven't tried—
I know I never let anyone die.