One Who Should Not...

A soft beanie slips over the small head
of one who should not be hairless
A needle plunges into the hip bone
of one who should not know that kind of pain
A single word scares
one who should not yet know true fear
Thoughts beyond this world float in the mind
of one who should not have to wonder what it feels like to die
Memories of a past life escape the conscience
This is normal, right?
Everyone gets chemo…
Everyone must fight for each day…
Everyone must endure the acrid taste of Prednisone as it skims the back of their throat…
Everyone must search each cell in their body for the energy to turn over in bed…
It’s impossible to imagine that the world goes on
lives go on…
while yours crumbles beneath your shaking feet
Why have you been chosen?
Only God knows…
How hard must you fight?
There is no certainty in the mouths of doctors…
What will happen?
Only time has the ability to speak those words…
Unanswerable questions to an unanswerable disease
Being a cancer kid is but a bitter honor…
Slowly “courage”, “strength”, “hope”, and “fight” shed their definition and gain a new one
You learn how to battle,
and you learn how and when to give up
You learn how to laugh through pain,
and smile through struggle
Happiness…the single most sought after thing in existence…
you learn how to stop seeking it and instead create it,
even in circumstances in which it is thought unsustainable
You learn independence,
yet that sometimes you must fully let go and lay your life in the arms of another
You realize the brittle, fragile nature of life,
and work to gently cradle it
You discover that a clock is of no value,
numbers fade and blend until only one second remains…now
What’s in that moment and how to handle it is of your own doing…
That which cannot be chosen might have chosen you,
but moment to moment it is you who has the choice
Tucked into the starchy sheets of a hospital bed,
one’s mind delves beyond the ceiling tile that has been stared at for an hour…
Never before had you been forced to stop…
and granted time to ponder what others step over every single day