Following is a poem Theodora wrote shortly after being diagnosed with breast cancer:
“Focused on Me for a Change”
Parasitic growth it is consuming a brew, a concoction consisting of Coffee, sugar, alcohol, estrogen, me...hopefully not you or you or you Lovers, Children, Sisters, Brothers, Friends, Healers, Muster! Warriors with me please align, albeit resignedly, Let us rise to the Call… to Battle. Slit slice dig peer slice peruse dye dissect implant, infuse Unfortunately accepting indiscriminate eradication of me ...my blood, my follicles So close in nature they are to it that our weapons cannot differentiate. Feel, know fear dear faces freely washed by tears Visualize, visualize, see the future, our future, a future me, Imagine our entire race without it! Collateral damage manageable tolerable endurable bearable See me wearing someone’s long flowing grand mahogany strands Glowing, dyed blue I grieve my Sentinel’s sacrifice…necessarily made to gauge our enemy’s number, its stage.
Turnips, asparagus, spinach, the Cruciferons, blueberries, chocolate…fortifiers, providers of vigor, yes Yet irrefutable strategies they are not proven allies as rigorous as those to which we now necessarily must resort: Mustard gas, “Happy” tree of Asia, bark of the Pacific Yew, Periwinkle, May apple, and fungi growing in the soil of the Earth. Gathered together solemnly they create a Recipe, a Cocktail, an Elixir all my own I raise a toast: to our Health! Silently I add this plea: protect, free me, all of us, from this malignancy.
Now… weed it heave it yank it pull it cut it out cull it minimize it separate it eliminate it …once and for all, for Good! With Fiery Grace I issue its dismissal… surely, truly, finally, go forth, leave me to again be all I desire to be!