Photo by Crystal Joe
Pulling Weeds
When I was young, I imagined cancer was black sticky tar that grew and grew until it solidified like cement. In reality, it's a reoccurring dream that you can't seem to remember. You wake in cold sweats, panicked and parched, run to the bathroom sink and let tap water fill you up until the dream fades and you sigh with a weight on your chest, not knowing it’s there, waiting, as your eyelids dip. It's a pressure that pulls at your neck, like an ache, a pinched nerve, a twinge; but its roots have grown so much deeper than the tiny weed sprouting above the sand. It's only after its seeds have buried in your blood that it spreads its toxin. Only when it's too late, only when the doctor sighs and says, "well," that you notice you missed the signs. You try and fight because you're human and living is so much more important when death is no longer someday, but soon— twelve weeks, in fact. Healers demand rest as they pull at dandelions, digging and digging only to find that the depth of their hold is too dense for any gardener to salvage. But pesticide has drowned the beauty leftover and now you're withered and delicate like a paper airplane already thrown. Then, there's nothing left to do but watch it grow, like mistletoe, and the ones you love kiss and kiss and kiss beneath it until it hurts too much to know there's nothing anyone can do and you ask to fall asleep, back to the dreams it was born from until you choke on your breath and solidify into cement.
The Author
Sierra A. Ellison is a writer of emotion. (Sometimes human, most times not.) Typically, she can be found in coffee shop windows, fist under chin, staring inquisitively at the sky.
Since obtaining a dual Master’s degree in Creative Writing and English, she now teaches at Chapman University in Rhetoric & Composition and writes whenever she can. When not teaching or writing, she has the pleasure of working on a new television show at Warner Brother’s, The CW.
