The 24th of June
I remember the anxiety during the drive there
The way the sweat raced from my forehead to my cheek
I remember how that awful place looked like a villain’s secret lair
And how his worst victims stayed for more than a week
I remember my mother, his most successful project
He appeared before her when I was thirteen
We never noticed how he’d always been there unchecked
Until the day he announced it was time for eating
He ate at her tongue, and she couldn’t speak without a wince
And then he ate at her throat and she couldn’t eat at all
He took away her sense of taste, she hadn’t been the same since
He ripped away her voice, and we couldn’t hear her pleading call
They called him Cancer, a being hated and feared by all
I should never have underestimated him
Because he shattered the sky and made it fall
And my mother was a game he had started on a whim
He toyed with her body and broke it down slowly
Then he took her will to live
And on June 19th, he said “five days” coldly
Five
Four
Three
Two
It’s the 24th of June
I thought I’d visit her the next day
But on the 24th of June he took my mother’s life away.