If you ever called in the night’s dim desperation
you’ve been diagnosed
your he can’t take the heat
I would say friend forever
I would make your bed
I would cook your rice
I would wash your bloody underpants
I would open the windows to let in the air
I would hold your shoulders in the evening
I would help you shave your hair off
without complaining when you turn in the bed 
and vomit onto my chest
when you cry I will listen
when you talk about the remainder
the days of pain, the only days
I will wait
I will help you put on your shoes
point out pretty birds beside the road
I will hold your hand walking into the ward
I will explain our complicity to the doctors
in the night I will rub your back when you can’t sleep
I’ll buy you a picture book of big trees
I’ll organize your pills by days of the week and times of the day
I’ll put on your favorite music: Aretha and Amy
I may lose my job to take care of you
I may lose my friends 
I may lose my mind a bit, shaken not stirred
but losing you would crush me out like a cigarette
I would be found wandering lost,
blank, calling your name.

I won’t forget that I wanted you so, that I needed you for myself
and you brushed me off like a fly,
but I can forgive everything now, and there will be
no pity, no charity, no saintliness
I will just change your chamber pots and give your shots
because even your wreck, your dusty bag of bones, is still the person I loved
more than filth, more than waiting, more than moaning, more than metastasis
you don’t have to do or say anything, just exist
even if.