Fuck Cancer

My grandmother was strangled to death 
by the bloodstained hands of cancer.

I imagine the disease one night sliding
down her windpipe and tip-toeing
like a burglar into her lungs – *again*.
I say *again* because the first time
he wasn’t strong enough to finish the job.

You see,
cancer and death made a
deal years before I was born.

(…Work was picking up for death – 
as it usually does in the summer. 
So one sunny morning he 
gave a few of his top hit men
a call and told them if they came 
through as usual, the reward 
would be bountiful…)

The first time,
cancer underestimated
my grandmothers fight.
So death empathized with him
and they both agreed to wait
until she was practically senile –
COWARDS.

…Then BOOM!

Her corpse is in an incinerator
being cremated and we’re outside
teary-eyed wondering why God
always lets the bad guys win.

My dad told me something about death
being a bully and that funerals are like a
shindig for him and his posse of rapscallions.

Back then, I wanted to find every
one of them and cut their throats
with the shards of our broken hearts.

But I guess that wouldn’t make me
much different, huh?