A poem by Rita Banik, Founder, RACE to rein-in-cancer
The never uttered word CANCER
The word that fills our heart with grief
Turns our feet cold with fear
The word that haunts and shatters …
How long shall we go on fearing?
How long shall we keep running away?
The more we run, the faster it chases
The faster you erase the quicker it re-appears!
Now cancer invokes anger in me
The anger that returns
Every time someone is diagnosed
Every time cancer takes a life
Is my anger directed only towards cancer?
I guess not.
My anger is of dual nature
One, towards cancer
For taking a life, for hurting a family
Two towards our society
That shuns the C word
What is cancer after all?
Just a cell
A cell that knows not how to multiply uniformly
The ugly, shapeless cell that wanders in the body……
It moves fast
So as not to get caught,
Multiplies fast
For its own survival
For its own existence
Unaware of how it harms
Unaware of the havoc it creates
Yet that one irregular cell in our body
Alarms us right from its birth
Come on, it is time for a checkup
For Clinical Examinations,
For Screening Tests!
But we pay no attention
We are the ones who neglect its presence
We are the ones who let it grow
We find all the time for party, to shop
But we hesitate to visit the doctor
Until that one cell grows into a tumor
Until it gets large and uncontrollable
Until its treatment goes out of hand!
So my friends
I seek an answer
Is cancer a friend?
For giving us warning signs before its arrival
Or a foe
For entering our body
Simply to make a room for itself!
More by Rita Banik
