Try not to make too much of suffering. Try not to make it into a profession.
— Tony Hoagland
First, I try releasing my anxiety
little by little,
a flock of balloons
rising over the lake,
the gold lust
of orange blossoms
and wild orchids
painting my pale skin.
For a year, I wore
a Kick Me sign
but now it’s time.
I hold a pillow over her face
until she stops thrashing,
force her head underwater
until bubbles dance
to the surface.
I poison her
the way she poisoned me.
I murder her
before she can murder me.
Good riddance
to the trembling,
bug-eyed horror,
the nausea and pain
that etched my face.
The cancer
was vanquished.
The spooked woman
looking over her shoulder
is gone for good.
I know
because I watched her die.
Terry Godbey’s poetry collections are Hold Still, a finalist for the Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award; Beauty Lessons, winner of the Quercus Review Poetry Book Award; Behind Every Door, winner of the Slipstream Poetry Chapbook Contest; and Flame. A winner of the Rita Dove Poetry Award, she has published poems several times in Green Hills Literary Lantern as well as in Rattle, Poet Lore, CALYX Journal, Florida Review and Crab Creek Review. Terry works as a corporate writer in Orlando, Florida. She wrote this poem in an attempt to put an end to her near-constant worry about her cancer coming back.