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Submitted by PatientsEngage on 21 March 2016

Arun M Sivakrishna's father did not smoke or drink, nor did he chew tobacco. He still got oral cancer. Arun shares a poem from his collection "Songs of a Solitary Tree"

My dad had oral cancer as well other ailments related to heart conditions and diabetes. He lost his left jaw bone. The irony is he never used to smoke or chew tobacco or drink. He had an abscess in the liver that was operated. He joked to me: "you smoke, I gave my jaw..you drink and I had to give my liver".. 

Dad used to be very good looking and the loss of the jaw was too much for him to fathom. It took a long time to come out of the trauma. A man, who once used to be very articulate and good person manager in his profession as the Superintendent Engineer of PWD, suddenly went into a cocoon. He couldn’t face people, wouldn’t talk and the temperamental issues all have made life miserable and added on to his heart condition.

Post Card From A Home Far Away

I think this may annoy you a bit
though it’s not meant that way.
How come these days,
we need to clarify every time,
lest it breeds silence over and again?

It is funny don’t you see,
despite giving my whole, it still smirks,
alone that I get back,
yet I love you with all that is left in me.

You never realize, I gave up my jaw
to that creeping crab, for you to enjoy the
smoke rings sent up like the cupid clouds
that’s shown in the cartoons your son gleefully watches.

I paid with part of my liver
so yours stay fine enough
to last those scary binging sprees
your mother always cries about...

It’s kind of a strange trade in, you know?
been paying for something
that I never have tried myself yet.
Guess, you are doing fine.

I heard you drive like a maniac,
remember, please be careful.
Our time may soon be up
till then we would remain
like hollow hulls of an once green elm…

Poem from the collection below: