Sun Worshipper - April 29, 2026

if I lived by cancer’s warnings, my face

would never feel like warm butter

my cold arms wouldn’t goose bump

with the mix of heat and tingle

bare legs would never walk through

a field and melt in freedom

if I did what they said, I’d rush

from shade to shade, never stopping

to linger in the precarious sun

but that dangerous star is what I worship

I may spread a defensive fortification

on the flesh above my neck, but the rest

of me has a vulnerable need

to worship this deity of joy

even if that devil, cancer, shadows me

I accept the side effects

of this kind of happiness

because those of darkness would spell

an even slower, more agonizing death