Fantasies of the Last Breath

Cancer lives inside us like a thistle,

sharp, unforgiving and I don’t say the words,

can’t say them, but I carry them anyway.

I fantasise not in peace,

but in chaos about your moment of death,

how it might come, how I might hold you,

or lose you, how the last breath might fall,

like a pebble sinking into everything I’ve ever known.

I bite down hard on my teeth,

swallow the scream whole, because saying it feels like breaking

the fragile lantern light we still have.

You are everywhere and nowhere

a murmur in the dark,

a shadow I trace but never touch.

Holding back is like holding you

tight, afraid to let go,

afraid the silence will swallow us whole.

But sometimes the flood breaks loose,

and the pain spills out

raw, ragged, trembling because love is too fierce to be quiet forever.