Hospice Care for a Love Affair

At dinner with Kevin and my father,
and Kevin looks at me and says,
“You look exhausted, I’m worried about you.”

I am, exhausted.
Heartbroken from every angle and
My shoulders are always cold.
I always just want to be held,

I just want to hold him all the time.

I just need him to live,
Is that so much to ask?

These days, it seems it might be.

Oncology appointment is on Wednesday and we will find out the stage, the next arbitrary line in the sand. But it looks like stage 3, and I am praying that means stage 3a or 3b, because, you know: statistics and impending mortality and there are enough questions to be asked without adding in,
“Where do you want me to scatter your ashes?”
As if I would be able to let them go.
As if I would be able to let him go.

I just want a little love that isn’t so impossibly muddled with pain.
I just want to love someone, for once, who doesn’t end up shriveled in a hospital bed.
A love that doesn’t end in hospice care.

I guess that whole till death do us part vow is coming to bite back.
I cannot picture him surviving this, intrusive thoughts of funerals
and my anxiety has really come full circle.

It feels like everyone I love dies of cancer.
How’s that for an abandonment issue?

My dad left the dinner table and Kevin kissed me, sort of.
He bit my nose like a lost little puppy.
I told him if he lives I will buy him a dog.
And if he dies, I will buy myself a dog.

I nuzzled into his neck and said,
“Do you want to stay?”