Heather Hoffman

Something Terminal

Is it wrong that for a minute

I wondered what it’d be like

to have a real problem

like cancer or being discriminated against.

I thought of all the poems I’d be inspired

to write

all the pain I’d have to share

all the words that would come

pouring out of my heart

as easily as the Niagara River

flowed over into the falls.

But how wonderful is it

for the truly afflicted

to have all these words at the ready

at any time

as the pain and experiences

never dissolve into nothingness

but either remain or grow larger

and more weighty on their souls?

Wouldn’t they be wishing for lightness

and a day where none of it existed

in exchange for all those words?