hoarse isn’t the right word to describe it—my new voice, debuted here

at this teen evangelical retreat. striated, incomplete, like two people talking

at once, a bad connection, an interruption, a possession scene in an exorcism movie.

i feel like a monster. i don’t recognize the sound of my own mouth. the wheezing,

the rattles, the gasping coughs, the incessant, involuntary hum. i’ve learned to wield

the word cancer like a weapon, a brute stick clumsy in my hands. at the bonfire,

the leader prompts me to share & each chair in our tight circle stares & cries

while i tell the diagnosis, the surgery, the damage to my nerves, the radiation,

the uncertainty. i will live, i clarify. my losses are evident. i watch myself

in the reflection of their faces transform into a living martyr. the next morning

one of the boys resolves to heal me. there are rumors he healed someone’s

sprained ankle last year. he’d laid his hands on her leg in second period

& by fourth she didn’t need crutches anymore. he stands before me, his back to the lake,

the water glassy, the dock still. sunlight laps at the smooth cheeks of the shore.

the boy brings his fingers to the front of my neck & i imagine the others watching,

waiting for a miracle, holding their breath to hear my round, full notes. the boy prays—

his eyes closed, brow knit, determined—while i mouth a counter incantation.