Cancer [Updated 11/17]

That word.

plastered on billboards, brochures and commercials

now belongs to her

And because swallowing the news was harder than ingesting a horse-pill

I took the elevator up six flights to place where she began

Where cries are welcomed and milk never spoils 
Where humans become parents 

And pain dissipates into an instinctual suckle 

I peered into the room where the gems are kept 

and pictured my own 

Rolling down the slide 

in her big girl boots and knotty hair

Here, nurses are angels who wipe your brow 

and place a halo on your diamond

But just six floors under they may as well be devils

who will soon inject poison into her body 

I pray she will end up here one day

In a different kind of pain than she is in now