Malignancy (v.1).

You could nickname cancer,
write letters to it in your diary,
wrap elaborately-drawn hearts around
your blended names. Nothing would change.
You could introduce it to your parents,
invite it to your prom, buy it a ring,
without changing anything,
without making it one molecule less
a tumor, its malignant weight resting
against your pulse.

Or else,
you could call me, snot-clogged sinuses
dripping, gut-ripping screams stifled
by sobs like pillows, saying
“I’m sick,” calling it
what it is.