So hard yet fleet a time now, it seems, since I was told I have cancer.

So many desperate prayers to God; still waiting for an answer.

Unless the answer, as Billy Graham once cynically suggested, is no.

He said every prayer is answered, you see;

But sometimes the answer is no.

No has become the word that has covered me.

No has become the word that has swallowed me.

Everywhere I look, I see a no.

Everywhere I turn, I find a no.

And from my heart I hurl back my own no, to them.

When I remember all the terrible things now happening to me,

My heart screams, “No!  No!  No!”

Yet, in this one case alone,

Comes back a cold, blade-gleaming yes.

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This is the only yes the universe now seems to have for me:

Yes, all this is happening to you.

Yes, it really is true.

Yes, you really do have cancer.

Yes, it is more advanced, and far worse,

Than you thought at first.

Yes, the treatments are terrible, and taking a toll

On your body, your mind, your heart, your very soul.

Yes, your world, and your life, and your unique individual self,

Are now all thoroughly cursed.

-----------------------

But my heart still bleeds out from the wound:

“No, this cannot be happening to me!”  It just cannot be.

I think, “How can this be happening to me?  I am I!”

The sobs of sorrow choke me off for a moment, then on I go:

“Not to me!  Not to me!  Not to me!  Please, not to me!”

Then, suddenly, I feel heart-wrenching compassion, because I know:

Everyone is, inside himself or herself, I.

Everyone wants to live; no one wants to die.

No one wants to suffer terrible pain.

Then my sorrow includes all the griefs of all the world,

The long terrible history of suffering and death, of all my fellow people.

I have no right to hope for more than they.

So many of them have suffered like me;

So many people have suffered worse than me.

Since they suffered so, and lost the light, what can I hope for when I pray?

-----------------------

And now it is happening to me.

This me, my me, must soon die in pain;

And for a long brief now, I must live what is left of my life in misery.

Only because I have to, can I bear my bitter loss.

I cry out for help.

But I hear no echo coming back from eternity.

For me, time has become a wide pit, impossible to cross,

A deep pit, in front of me, waiting for me, a pit full of quicklime.

I love life, I love life, I want to live!

There is so much more from time that I could take;

So much more that I could give.

Despite all pain, I want to stay;

Despite all wanting, I have to go.

Iron laws of physics, chemistry, and reality decree that it must be this way.

I have to live and suffer and die--between yes and no. 

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Written by Michael LP, aka MLP
aka PoetWithCancer, aka PWC, aka Mr. Poet
Copyright © 2010 by Michael L.P.  All rights reserved