Chemotherapy Sessions With My Last Love

Enough is when I have fever and you have warm toaster hands, and your skin smells like scrambled eggs and milk.

Enough is when you leave a note under my favorite book and it says “I read this one last night while you were asleep. You looked peaceful when you whispered my name.”

Enough is when you tell me I’m taking too long in the shower and once I’m out you’re holding a hair dryer. You smile with no wrinkles around your eyes and there are no heartaches, not when I’m bedridden, my veins looking like algae linings, my eyes deep in my sockets.

Enough is when you just tell me I look pale like the sky before dawn, like whitewash walls of your childhood bedroom, and you still call me darling, honey, baby, beautiful. My name.

You whisper my name when you’re sleeping like I do, even when locks of my hair are treating my hands like graveyards, as though my head is growing corn husks and it’s harvest season.

Enough is when you preheat everything I like: the chicken soup we shared last night, the pieces of toast we had in the morning, the warm laundry sheets we cuddled with yesterday afternoon.

I just wanted you again and again. I’m sorry.

I’m sorry you had to see me burying my head inside a vomit bowl, a toilet seat. I’m sorry I couldn’t let go of your hand every goddamn chemo session. I just wanted you there. Fuck that. I needed you. Fuck that. I love you. And every time I try to let go of your fingers one by one, you held onto mine like a chain made of lightning, like we had love that will last beyond sunset horizons.

Enough is when you stay. When you tell me I have fever, no longer touching me as many times before with your warm toaster hands because you’re afraid that it’ll be the last time you’ll be able to. But you’ll eventually do. Enough becomes that moment.

Enough becomes every piece of a moment. 


Enough is us. More than any breath and anything, enough is you.