Christian Science Church and Reflection, Boston, Massachusetts

A Poem
By B.L.

Mom’s religion is more important than me
She’d rather die than be
Treated for cancer with medical care
She puts her life in the hands of prayer
She’d rather die than change her mind
I stand by to watch and find
Her suffering in pain more every day
Slowly failing and wasting away
Less I can say and more that I can’t
Ignoring the room’s elephant
It’s hard to explain to you
Why her health is such taboo
Here I am, my mom is dead
Questions unanswered and things left unsaid
Feeling abandoned and betrayed
Wishing I meant more and my mom had stayed


Image by Rizka (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons