CONTROLLING
AGONIZING
NAUSEA
CHEMO
ENERGY LOSS
RADIATION
Diagnosis cancer two-thousand and nine
Emotion overload, life frozen in time
Tracheotomy - Chemo - Radiation
Depression - Anger - Trepidation
Strong sense of survival, don't want to die
Praying to God, while starting to cry
With support of family and God above
Friends a coworkers showing their love
Chemotherapy times eight
Radiation therapy thirty-five
Nausea , dry mouth, and thing you hate
Six months later and you survived
Proton Therapy
may be right for you
One-sixth the radiation
nowhere near as exhausting
And take a look at
how much less it's costing
Why is traditional
radiation therapy promoted
Are its insurance coverages
so sugar-coated
Romeo! Romeo! Romeo!
I heard someone with a sweet voice
Calling in the radiation-therapy zone.
And I wondered, Juliet in the hospital!
With no balcony and twinning vines?
The deserted corridor also echoed -
Romeo! Romeo! Romeo!
You had been inside for quite sometime.
Has anything gone wrong? -
I began worrying.
And I saw a nurse, her faced covered,
Almost, with a green mask,
Standing by the entry-restricted door,
Her eyes, visibly, searching for someone.
And she called out -
Romeo! Romeo! Romeo!
From nowhere a ward boy, in grey shirt
And black trousers, came in
Pushing a wheelchair.
I caught a glimpse of the name printed
On his shirt's breast-pocket, Romeo.
A while later, I saw you in the wheelchair,
Pushed by Romeo, emerging from the radiation room.
I felt a sting of jealousy puncturing my heart,
And wished if I could wield
A stilleto, pointing its sharp tip
To that wretched young-man, Romeo.
While I was opening the glass door
To usher you out of the clinic,
I heard, again, the nurse's voice echoing -
Romeo! Romeo! Romeo!
Momentarily
By Franklin Price
8/13/2105
Momentarily I thought
I feel sorry now for me
Then in another moment asked
How selfish can I be?
I'm having quite an issue
With some cancers of the skin
Doctors scrape and cut on me
On the outside not on in
A little inconvenience
Some bandages and pain
A little scarring here and there
But mostly whole again
Haven't lost an arm or leg
A colon or a lung
Still can climb a ladder
And move from rung to rung
More fortunate than others
In radiation therapy
With chemo in addition
I was there once so you see
I'm grateful now for where I am
That I'm not there again
No cancer on the inside
But lesser cancers of the skin
Must take care of everything
That bears the cancer name
Never know which one could be
The ending of the game
Know that God is with me
Through each and every bout
By himself not cure everything
Has doctors here for helping out
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.