CANCER DOES NOT BEHAVE
CANCER DOES NOT BEHAVE
Cancer does not behave.
It doesn’t respect age, zip code, diet, prayers, or plans.
It doesn’t care about your vegan phase, your new insurance, or your favorite aunt’s birthday next month.
It just comes.
And lately, it seems to be coming harder for people of color.
Especially Black women.
Maybe I’m partial — but I’m watching it happen over and over again.
A friend.
A poet.
A mother.
A fighter.
A survivor — until she has to start surviving again.
I had a bump on my toe for over a year.
Just a bump.
I thought it was a corn.
I kept putting that weird-smelling over-the-counter medicine on it, watching it fall off and grow right back a week later.
A repeat offender.
When I finally went to Kaiser, Dr. Chad gave me that polite-but-concerned doctor look.
You know the one.
The one where they say, “What do you mean grow back?” and try not to let the worry reach their eyebrows.
He said, “Yeah… let’s just make sure.”
And all I could think about was my ex.
How her tumor burst through her skin in the shower while we waited just six weeks for her surgery.
How she screamed, how we rushed, how the world shifted under that sound.
I told him that story.
Told him that if this bump on my toe was cancer, it would’ve eaten my leg off by now.
He nodded.
I laughed.
It wasn’t funny.
Two post-op visits later, I still don’t have the biopsy results.
I’m walking around in this ugly medical shoe, ruining my office fashion, limping between meetings, pretending not to care.
Meanwhile, my sister in poetry — Georgia Me — is fighting for her life.
Her cancer has returned with a vengeance and spread to places that words can barely reach.
And here I am, complaining about shoes.
Perspective is cruel like that.
I’ve learned that the details of someone else’s fight aren’t mine to tell.
But I was given permission to spread the word.
Because when the village needs to show up, you call the village.
So tonight, the village is gathering in my living room.
We’re turning pain into poems, grief into gospel, fear into fundraising.
We’ll read.
We’ll sing.
We’ll laugh in between tears and pretend for a few hours that hope can hold us together.
Georgia Me will stop by and share her journey — raw, real, and in her own words.
We’ll raise money for her surgery and for the fight she’s too tired to fight alone.
If you can’t make it in person, you can join us on Zoom.
If you can’t join at all, you can still send love:
CashApp: $wisdomMama
📅 Tonight, 8 PM–10:30 PM
🪑 BYO chair, pillow, or blanket.
🥤 Bring a drink with a lid, and snacks — no full meals.
🎟️ $15 before 7P / $25 after
Tickets: CODAWOPENMIC.eventbrite.com
This isn’t a show.
It’s a gathering.
A reminder that art can still be medicine — even when the body isn’t cooperating.
If you’d like to support beyond tonight, become a CODAW member.
Your annual membership keeps our workshops and open mics free for writers who need a place to land — especially when life knocks the wind out of them.
👉🏽 Join CODAW: www.thequeensheba.live/membership
Because cancer does not behave.
But we can.
We can behave like a village.
We can behave like love.
And sometimes, that’s the only medicine left.
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