This thing

which lives inside them

grows larger everyday

it spreads like wildfire

and patients are the parched grass

the doctors love their drugs

chemo will do the trick

till hair falls out

and the body weakens

fatigued by what it won't accept

then people become polite

whisper in hospital corridors

do not say it out loud

all the pink ribbons

all the years of research

won't put it away

it multiplies

contaminates

the power of such tiny cells

metastasizing in tumors

spread in blood

in secret

until it is too late

this growth they call

the C word

the truth of which

they dare not speak.