I turn up the music to drown out my mind
Steven Tyler screaming through my car speakers

My body shakes with the intensity of the sound
My mind shakes with the intensity of my thoughts

That voice in my head saying things I refuse to hear
Not today, not ever, I’m not ready

SING WITH ME SING FOR THE YEAR SING FOR MY LAUGHTER SING FOR MY TEAR
I’m singing with him
Singing for the good days while the raindrops leak from my eyes and fall down my face
Singing for the days when nothing could touch me

When everyone I loved was healthy and strong
When death was a concept I read about in books but only an abstract demon as real as a dream

I’m screaming the lyrics of the song while my car shakes with the bass
Anything I can do to stop my thoughts

If I could only play that music all the time
In the moments of silence my thoughts seep through
***
She couldn’t have cancer
Not again
If something happens to her I cannot even fathom what I’ll do

Didn’t the past two surgeries do the trick?
She only has so much lung left

The doctors said they got the tumor out
Why is it back
She only has so much lung left

Can she do another surgery?
The risks are so much greater
because
She only has so much lung left

She would be different
The statistics applied to other people
She could survive with so much lung left

All this and more pounded in my head as I drove nowhere on that sunday afternoon.
Little did I know.
***
She became a statistic
Nothing more
Just death
There was only so much lung left