Love Is Always Worth the Pain
I met him in a grocery store
His laugh loud, his eyes quiet
Balanced learned from years of compliance and defiance
He's learned young that business serves a client
Life is anarchy and autocracy
We fought the same war
We found the same peace
Cancer taught us to find the ripest fruit on the floor
My leg, his hip, our battle wounds
Scars are celebrated only when they've healed
Dreams exchanged too soon
His fate all but sealed
When cancer in his brain was revealed
He's not the only one I’m losing
He won't be the only one I’ve lost
My best friend died in april
How many more am I going to lose to cancer this fall?
I’d give them all the juice of my fruit
Giving is the elixir of friendship
Friendship has a side effect of loss
But they dig into me with their cold fingertips
How long before I quit...
How long before I'm just a fruitless pit?
I'm disappearing
We, cancer survivors, are produce with no preservatives
Whether the disease be in the tongue, blood, lungs
We are 100% organic
Because only the good die young
I know we don't shop for friends…
We swipe
What’s plastered on the foreheads of these survivors
Are overt best before dates
My own does not ablate
Groceries cost by weight
Weigh the inevitable losses against the gains
Are these friendships really worth the pain?
And when we watch the rotten limbs we chopped off each other
Mutants mutilated
When they freeze you before we leave you
Cadaver before dead
Will these friendships be worth the pain?
I was abandoned at diagnosis
My misfortune too unfortunate for them
They could only take sour in small doses
I wanted to be the friend I didn't have then
So we'll balance in an interdependent display
We'll go down to earth
I love them because they are so down to earth
We will live, love, grieve, die together
And even if too soon I understand we return to earth
From where we once came
Because yes, we've been vegetables
And the pitiers who pursue companionship for personal gain
They will come by the masses
Feign again and again
But if I’m here
I promise my devotion will not wane
Because the most excruciating lesson I've learned is
That love is always worth the pain
So if I check out
Or you check out
Of this grocery store
Know that I was never in it for the pc optimum points
by Fabienne de Cartier of BAM! Youth Slam
performed at Toronto Poetry Slam finals (2020)