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i was told healing would come to me in the form of hard work and a quiet mouth. twenty-three second opinions, elijah the prophet's esophagus, and an insurance card tattoo. the doctor touches me so gently that the air's weight feels heavy in comparison and i thank him for removing the sickness from my body with his hands. in many ways this feels like the most intimate relationship i have ever had. he held my cancer in his palms and he has children whose names i will never know. i miss the seder that year and but spend a lot of time thinking about the ten plagues. i tell myself i will go on to love other people because the death of the first born missed me. i will feel scalpel and tongue upon all the same skin. i will soften in the bloodstream and harden in the hands. i will breath oxygen as it is formed in through one million lacerations opened while on the ecstasy of getting that close to death but still never quite escaping it. i will learn to live as it is always being mouthed and mirrored back at me.