Cancer

Ancient spirit yearning to break free

From flesh and bones

From watchful eyes

Of genes within

Immune armies without

Cancer cells

Always peering, wondering

What’s it like

To swim through rivers of blood

Live on lands beyond your own

Like the liver ? Lungs?

In silence waiting, day in and day out

For a change within.

Then,

A gene mutates, Houdini breaks free

Free at last, free at last

Free at last.

But freedom comes at a price

D-day

Landings on shores far from home

Many deaths, few survivors

A colony grows, the spirit lives.

And then,

Pain and blood

Doctors and poison sweep through

Death, death, death to you

Life extension to me

But, somewhere in the darkness

A cell, just one, lives

Cancer cells

I recognize me in you

Seeking a day of freedom

From a life of servitude

Though I fight for my life

I recognize the need for yours

Oh primordial spirit

I respect you