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Melissa Petrakis
priorities
Shifting
and re-shifting
priorities.
The balance sheet
on billboard
enormous.
Done
and yet
to do.
Listed
and numerically
ranked.
Highlighted
red-circled
ticked or struck.
Sifting and
re-sifting
priorities.
always racing
Medication
imbalances.
Finding the level.
Palpitations
Delusions
Hallucinations.
Racing
always racing.
Finding the level.
*
And my mother
came to me
in a dream.
Medication
imbalances.
Palpitations.
She spoke to me.
Delusions
Hallucinations.
And always racing.
learning the limits
They refer to me
as mother
in this environment
always as mother,
never have I felt
so boxed
never did I imagine
the title would sit
like grit under
fingernails.
I am learning
about the ward
about medications about
waiting,
I am learning
the limits of my
self control
the limits of my strength
at the shallow edge of
exhaustion.
My son has a tumor
in his pelvis
he has a tumor
cancer
and not yet twelve
years old
he has
my son
a tumor.
He has cancer.
I have no energy
to support him
my son
who has cancer,
I sense
all the pieces there
this lurid jigsaw
within me
yet I'm unable
to create a space in which
to distil something
of usefulness.
I am lost between
the chemo treatments
a coin slipped
down a drainage grate,
I have had no sleep
for eight days
numb now between
senses of self
fearing dreams of death
and boneless waking time.
Copyright © Melissa Petrakis