Cold & In the Wide-Open Air

Cold

Dear Cancer,

I am so far from

the me who sat in that chair

cold and so afraid.

But so so so cold.

Blankets weren’t enough to keep

the heat in my bones

so I shivered there

for four long months and tried to

imagine a fu-

-ture where warmth and ease

were mine to keep all day long.

Always. Forever.

— Mallory

* * *

In the Wide-Open Air

Dear Cancer,

Sometimes,

in the dark,

I whisper the things I am

most afraid of.

The make it or break it things.

The

Do you ever feel that way?s

and the

Do you know what I mean?s

The phrases whose answers I am most afraid to hear

but also the phrases I need to get

out

of my head

where they won’t fester.

Out where

their power wanes as air sifts

in between their cracks and into their crannies.

They don’t look so big anymore

in the wide-open air.

— Mallory

This article was in the 2022 Dear Cancer issue of Elephants and Tea Magazine! Click here to read our magazine issues.