Those words would roll off my tongue
Like barbed wire down a hill
Cancer
They say Nana's got it
But I feel like I’m dying
Like I've grown a lump in the bottom of my belly
Cancer
She’ll go in on the 18th to have the mass removed from her breast
They say that I should start getting my chest checked too.
I ask if they’ll take the whole breast.
No, just the lump and some radiation.
Just flesh and blood and sutures and x-rays and mammograms and white hospital walls and cold doctor hands and needles and IV’s and horrible hospital gowns that they’ll turn backwards to cut into my Nana's chest
and rip out the spoil seed of cells twice, thrice multiplied.

They say its a struggle but she will survive.
I went numb.
Then everything went white silent.
I was speaking, holding conversations, even laughing.
I was so detached.
On autopilot
I was living but I stopped feeling.
I called her,
No I texted her landline by accident
Then she called.
I couldn't bring myself to just casually bring it up
“Hey Nana heard about your cancer, that must suck ass”
I didn't have words for this,
and since I wouldn't poison an already sick women with the malicious name of her disease.
I simply said “I heard”
The rest of that conversation was niceties.
That god would heal her, for me not to worry, that this is a part of her testimony.
To which I could only reply “mmhm” “I hear ya” “amen”
Then she wanted to know about me and school and grades and college plans and anything under the sun unrelated to her condition
That’s Nana for ya!
The same Nana who would give me “slave braids”
Thick corn rows twisted and turned by fingers that picked cotton and okra
The same Nana who makes the best macaroni and cheese, cornbread, ham, rice, and the most amazing down home breakfast you’ll ever have the pleasure to devour,
The same Nana who “only because, she cares” critiques my posture, etiquette, eating habits, and clothes.
The same Nana who would work herself to the bone to make sure her grandkids are taken care of the way she sees fit
Has cancer but cancer doesn't have her