Dry Day

Two days ago, you were fine. Working out of your home office, sweatpants and thick wool socks on the bottom. A cap for chemo patients, a barrier between the harsh reality of hair loss and manufactured normalcy.

Then, your platelet count dropped. Crimson trailed out of your nostrils. She scrambled to get you both on the noon ferry. You choked back bile, counting the seabirds outside the car window.

The doctors working on you had sweat dripping down the sides of their faces. The glass barrier between the virus raging outside and the patients within heaved with breath, pacing, waiting for an opportunity.

Slippery. A jump from animal to human, a quick mutation turns into human to human. There are no hugs in the cancer ward. No kisses on the cheek, no pat on the back. There is only the sterile needle deposit, the steady saline drip in your wrist.

So we wait for the bone marrow pulled from your arm to tell all.

In the meantime, I’ve returned to biting my nails. Ripping off small pieces of skin from around my thumb. This small bloodletting helps me forget my fear of losing you — of the cosmic, gaping loss you would leave. Of the grief stitched on my aunt’s face, the new lines on my mother.

Normalcy burns like a liquid flame. I’m consumed by jealousy towards those who have no stake in this fight. I think of…