Monster

 

The radiation-monster machine

Is the strangest thing I’ve ever seen.

It has metal teeth, it has no eyes

I visit it every day at 5.

 

It lives in the basement

Down in the dark

It shines a green line 

Across my heart.

 

I bring it flowers

I bring it wine

It gives me nothing

Except that green line.

 

The monster is perfect

It’s work, pristine.

The doctors love it

They gaze, serene.

 

It has no mother

It can’t give birth

It’s lines dart and cross

But they don’t hurt--

that’s on the outside.

Inside I glow

And cells are screaming

With nowhere to go.

 

My cells will keep dying

After my visits end,

That’s what they tell me.

They won’t ever mend.

 

My body has

A half-life now

A half-life of glowing

A half-life to bow

down to the exhaustion

to the anger, the fear.

Is that my purpose?

Is that a tear?

 

 

The radiation-monster machine

Has the ugliest face I’ve ever seen.

Inches from my face

It gnashes its teeth

Ignores me, my tears,

My anger, my fate.