Saturday, January 7, 2017

Testicular Cancer



Testicular Cancer

Matt's once-red bald head
lays limp with hospital sweat.
Rivers of acid solder pathways,
burrowing in through my eyes.

Oh my God
who was not Father
when monsters stirred
and rooted through his
flesh like spider legs
while I vanished into pits of me.

     - David Orris



I lost a friend when I was very young to testicular cancer. I think I was 19. His name was Matt and he was diagnosed one day and it seemed like just seconds later he was gone. No warning. An outgoing guy, president of his senior class at his high school, I got to know Matt as the bass player of my Christian rock band when we were 16-17. We toured together-- including the summer before he passed. It was my first time confronting the passing of a peer and the sudden violence of cancer. This poem was my response.

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