Little brothers give life (stem cells) to older brothers

Mothers give life (birth) to daughters who’d give their left kidney if asked nicely

Mentors grip twenty-three year old hands and say

You are capable and strong

they teach of race as a risk factor because racism doesn’t fit

language outpaced by time must breathe awkwardly into the silence

Love your body. Picture your pharyngeal arches saluting one another

While they replicate, differentiate, and mature

Trace your fifth intercostal space to the midclavicular line

Curl up and be comforted by the rhythm beneath

these pills were meant as a cure, and now they become disease

for this disease we have no theory or antidote, if we do, misguided and disparate

Whispers of awe between peers (family) in lecture hall one

We cry and smile, study and love, preach and ignore, with vigor

United under something impalpable

An infinite balancing act of this –

Innocent enough to marvel at medicine’s beautiful intersections

bold enough to level with humanity

unraveling

He held his newborn close, the weight of life

pressed into his arms, as if anchoring him.

Tiny fingers curled around his own,

a quiet defiance against the looming unknown. 

The OR felt vast, its hum steady and cold,

bright lights slicing through shadows of doubt.

It was my first time here, in this theater of life,

where surgeons would untangle disease from flesh. 

The incision began at 8 AM.

A long vertical cut, midline and deliberate,

opening his abdomen to the bright white light.

Retractors stretched the walls of muscle and skin,

a doorway into the labyrinth within. 

The general surgeons moved first,

steady hands navigating the liver’s intricate landscape.

A fortress of lobes and vessels, its edge diseased.

They clamped blood vessels, teased apart bile ducts,

carefully removing malignancy with each precise stroke.

An arc of blood erupted, sudden and fierce.

I froze, unprepared for its vitality.

The anesthesiologist, calm beside me, murmured,

“Blood loss is heavy, 

keep watching.” 

I watched. I watched as suction cleared the field,

as sponges soaked scarlet and hands pressed hard.

The bleeding stemmed, the liver surrendered,

its diseased portion excised with unyielding care. 

By afternoon, the urology team stepped in,

their task just as delicate, just as dire.

The retroperitoneal lymph nodes lay beneath,

scarred pathways of metastatic spread.

Careful dissections danced near the great vessels:

the aorta, the vena cava, the delicate mesentery.

Every move was deliberate, every stroke mapped

against the unrelenting presence of disease. 

George Harrison played faintly in the background:

"Hallelujah… Hare Krishna…" 

The melody wrapped around the tension in the room,

a hymn for persistence, for faith in the craft. 

Hours stretched like a taut thread.

The surgeons worked on,

guided by skill and persistence alone.

The lymphadenectomy pressed on through the evening,

each excised node a triumph. 

By 10 PM, the last suture fell into place,

a man stitched back together,

a future reclaimed from the brink. 

Later, as I left the hospital’s sterile glow,

his face stayed with me, 

the father,

cradling his newborn in the still of dawn.

The image was clear, indelible:

life held tight, fought for, 

won. 

The OR gave me more than experience that day,

it unveiled the fragility of flesh,

the resilience of human resolve,

and the music that binds it all together.

"Hallelujah, Hare Krishna…"

A hymn for hope, for healing, for life. 

An ode and response to “Iron Goddess of Mercy” by Larissa Lai

If i’m being honest i don’t get most of the verses the words make sense individually but strung together or strung a p a r t it is completely impenetrable. but i’m not averse in fact i’m anything but versus- maybe that’s the point it’s the joint creation of a dictation that’s fictation but truth to both of us and to none of us like white light through a spectrum that is everything while absolutely nothing in our fists. it’s the feelings and concepts and stuff that’s layers of trifle where BOOM it’s a narrative then BOOM it’s colonialism and BOOM it’s the diaspora and BOOM it’s my precarious mental health and it relies on yours too – there’s a trifle for you. it often seems at the seams that paradoxes are the only thing in sight because that’s what’s in situ that’s our plight that we fight and it bites a bit and bit bit bit more until the shield is pierced and it all gushes out in a fit fit fit… trying to find the words that represent this moment to have a momentum of the present because to face it face on face forward is too hard and we’re bards and the more jumbled the better go get her we got you but AHA also we GOT YA! is this art or is this insanity because one is marvelous and the other is bad to the core of the fruit that was ate and wait was that bait well either way we pay for it today tomorr’ forevermore, in the form of which is, of course, the sterile ward.

I used to weave my hair into tidy braids,

paint strokes across canvases,

turn keys to the rhythm of ignition,

but now, my hands have betrayed me. 

This knot, this cyst that blooms like a secret

beneath my wrist,

and joints that wander too far from home,

they bring with them a sharp reminder. 

Pain: a constant whisper, 

when I dare to remember 

what it felt like to hold the world. 

I hold a brush, but it wavers,

like a bird unsure of its wings.

The braid unravels before it begins,

the car stares back,

its wheel taunting me:

you can’t turn me anymore. 

its promise of freedom 

locked behind this aching barrier. 

Each day feels smaller,

shrinking into tasks I can’t finish.

The kettle waits unlifted,

clothes drape themselves across chairs,

and the world piles up,

an ever-growing monument

to the things I used to do. 

Even work, my tether to purpose,

slips away like sand through aching fingers.

Emails left unanswered,

buttons I cannot press,

a handshake I’m afraid to return.

How do I explain

that it’s not laziness but my own body

frayed, twisted, and aching, 

rebelling against me? 

Sometimes, I feel more like an observer

than the girl I once was. 

She is somewhere else,

driving, typing, laughing,

wielding hands that didn’t hesitate.

Her shadow lingers

in every unwashed dish,

in the space between my palm

and the steering wheel. 

At night, I dream of strength,

a wrist that bends, a joint that holds firm.

But morning comes,

and the knot still rests beneath my skin,

and I move slower, gentler,

watching the world grow heavier

as I grow smaller. 

I wish someone had told me

how independence clings so tightly

to the little things—

the button of a blouse,

the twist of a doorknob,

the way a pen fits snug in your grip.

Losing them feels like 

losing myself, 

and pain is the tether 

that won’t let me forget.