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Tags from last 12 months

cancer (1) survivor (1) hope (1) poem (1)

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For You, Wherever You Are

It was on my first of many elevator rides 

up from the basement floor

I met a woman with short, red hair and a leather jacket, 

who I only ever saw 

just this once. 

 

I don’t know whether I ever responded

when she spoke to me

or to God

or to the elevator door 

 

saying:

three years ago, now,

they had given her six months to live. 

 

saying:

three ye...

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cancersurvivorhopepoem

Friday Morning Chemo Brain

Today at school, I locked myself in the bathroom 

so I could cry where no one could see.

 

Things aren’t the same anymore and I don’t know 

how to communicate it.

 

I find myself unable to do the simplest things—

to comprehend, to remember, to articulate 

the things I could before.

 

This morning, I sat in silence and stretched and breathed in deeply, 

and I said t...

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Cancersurvivorgriefhealing

I Want You to Know

I want to tell you.

 I want to write it down. 

I want to have the right words.

I want to feel them. I want you to feel them. I want you to feel what I felt. 

I want you to know. About everything. I want to show it to you in broad daylight. 

I want you to see it. I want you to face it. I want you to taste it 

when the water turns to bleach. I want it to blister the inside of your ...

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cancerexpressiongriefhealingshort poem

Ode to the Butterfly Window

I always hoped I’d get a seat next to them—

 

After so many hours in that chair, you look for anything to make you smile.

Most days I came prepared with things to occupy my mind.

 

I carried a book of Kate Bush’s song lyrics, called How to Be Invisible, which had been nearly ruined once when I spilled an entire canteen of water in the bag I packed to take to the hospital.

 

Bu...

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cancerchemohopehealingcouplets

A Year Ago, Tomorrow

“De Temps En Temps,” by Josephine Baker. That’s what I was listening to. Funny now to think I'd ever forget how it felt, something like that. 

 

Alone and facing my death in a stranger’s beach house, next to a dark, cold, ocean in the dead of Winter.

 

I ate Dove chocolates and soaked in a warm bath with bubbles to the brim, and listened to “De Temps en Temps,” while lifting a razor to...

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cancerfree versespringsurvivor

The Violence Now of Miss Anthropocene

The sound of “Violence”

I can feel it

 

Heavy-

Weight in

My stomach

 

Standing on

The ledge, again

 

Don’t move

Don’t slip

 

The poison running through

My veins, I feel it

Hurting me, helping me

 

Smells of

Pink plastic wig

Pretty pink perfume 

 

Pretty

Make me pretty

Don’t let me

Lose me

 

Pray to God I don’t

Lose th...

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cancerfree versesurvivor

Lucky Girl

i am a lucky girl.

 

just recently i read that

on average

people take around 24,000 breaths 

everyday 

in between words

and laughs 

and running late to their jobs.


today i watched an old

PJ Harvey concert on tv

she was singing and

screaming and

breathing 

all over the place-

it was great

i bet i took a thousand breaths 

just sitting there watchi...

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cancerfree versehealingsurvivor

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