Aestivate
My sister whispered it last night while she was crying on the phone, and I looked it up with seven year old fingers but it made me feel sad. Sometimes I look under the couch and I find pennies but I've only got six of them, and so I'm not worth very much, and whisper words mean being rich enough to spend summer.
I guess Summer is a currency you get when you're seven.
Beleaguer
Katie is the wrong amount of blood cells, she's misspelled healthy from day one, she's angry because they want me to save her. She's cancer.
Her head is shiny and she gets mad at me because I tell her I want to be just like her and needles terrify her but I think they are kinda cool, and when I tell the doctor that she hits me.
Once I asked her what living meant, and she called me selfish and a pest and obnxoius and I didn't get it. She jokes about dying and says she hopes Jesus brings her a Jamba juice when he meets her, and Katie knows everything because she's got a GED though she's in eighth grade because dialysis takes fifty bazillion hours and she didn't want to watch Sesame Street with me since I was sitting next to her.
Cynosure
Yesterday, I was bleeding and she laughed at me. I'm key boards whose slots have been ripped up to study how better computers can be fixed- I'm like Jesus but I don't want to drink hospital apple juice waiting for them to be ready to pierce my hips and try to rescue Katie's cells.
I cut my finger and it wouldn't stop stinging so I crawled onto her bed with her, but she smirked at me. I asked her how come I can't laugh at her when she bangs her elbow and blood starts gushing out and she said she can do anything because she's dying.
I asked her what the difference between fading and borderline is- because I might as well be dying too.
Conflate
I exist for her- and two nights ago we played monoply and she kept landing in jail because she's really really bad, and I always get the horse because I love metaphors. I brought pillows to her and the last scoop of Chocolate ice cream and then I told her I'd save her and tried to give her my get out of jail free card.
'Emma, I don't want to saved.... Just stop!' And then I didn't feel like playing anymore because I'm designer which should be special but it just means doctor visits and measuring tapes and prickly bandaids.
If I'm not supposed to save her, there's really no point for me.
Author notes
Utterly and completely inspired by move My Sister's Keeper
This isn't my plot line in any way- I was inspired and wrote from Anna's perspective. I have no claim over characters, or situation, metaphors are mine but the ideas came from the book and all copyrights are Jodi Piccoults. I don't intend in any way to take credit away from her, or take from her or claim as mine because its all hers.
- Two sisters, three years apart, one is born with cancer and is dying, the younger one was genetically designed to be a donor and save her sister, everytime her sister goes to the hospital so does she.
All Jodi Piccoults.
w r i t i n g 0 f r e e d o m
A contest entry
- prose/freeverse [part 2] by etoile.
3000 points, ended July 10, 23 entries
Honorable mention
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest - Make Me Cry by Erica Carnea.
490 points, ended June 21, 14 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest - Love, Honest, Be Creative by Jamzine.
450 points, ended July 23, 38 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Comments
1 - 5 of 5
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omg this is beautifully written. when I first started reading I thought to myself how similar this is to my sister's keeper haha. guess I was write.
I love this, it's amazing.
goodluck and thanks for entering
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thx for enetring
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I Love This!!
Thankyou So Much For Sharing And Good Luck In My Contest x -
Oh, I adore this. I can't come up with words for it. This is great<33
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This was very different from anything that I have read in a long while. But then again most of your poetry is... I have been secretly reading your poetry for the past couple of days but this is the first poem that I have come across that I actually had a strong desire to comment on. I really was just going to leave a secret and never speak on any of your poems. But I was compelled, and who am I to deny myself this thrill. I loved this piece. Thank you for sharing this with me.
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