If you should find yourself nineteen,
far more concerned with the outside world to consider
the worth of drawing breath on this Earth,
I urge you to listen.


This will hit you harder than most,
feed you the value of time in the form of pills,
catheters, biopsies,
injections, therapy,
and hair loss.


Lessons come in sessions,
prolonged periods of side effects
enough to fuel your impatience.
You’ll find yourself staring blankly at the ceiling,
perhaps more often than you’d wish,
deep in thoughts built to land you in a ward.


But you are not here to write poems
dwelling on the uncertainty of your further existence.

You are here to dance in the face of adversity.

Dust off your armor.
Take aim.