By Sierra Baker
Outside this body
Cut from here to here
Listening from ear to ear
Not me, not in me, not this body.
He said “Cancer . . .”
Cancer, did I hear right?
Correct me, (PLEASE!). Cancer?
I questioned my being
I could see it playing in my head.
Lay on the table
Cut from here to here
Then I was there
“Lay on the table Ms. Baker . . .”
I thought cut from here to here?
“It’s time for anesthesia,” I hear
5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . . I pass out after I scream,
“Don’t put her next to me, she snores!” . . .
And I wake up
I feel the cuts from here to here
Voices of doctors and nurses I hear
On morphine, pain unknown I fear
My new life as a survivor
No more lies. Come out, no more hiding.
A bi cancer survivor, I don’t hear them anymore,
No more lies, no more hiding, just me.
Sierra is a college student in the process of transferring to Middle Tennessee State University, where she will be majoring in Sociology and Women and Gender Studies.