噛ませ犬

Alda Merini, tr. by Susan Stewart, from Love Lessons: Selected Poems of Alda Merini; “The cry of death”

so to start off, for about the last month and a half my family's been dealing with my grandpa's health after he went to the hospital for an emergency visit and they found a mass on his pancreas; this monday they finally confirmed that while the cancer is only in his pancreas, it would be harder on him (he's 86) to undergo chemo and that he's choosing to live out the next 3-4 month time frame they gave him. i've never been particularly close with him, both emotionally and physically (he lives on the east coast, i've almost always lived on the west coast or close to it), but even so, it's been very emotionally taxing between waiting on the news and finally getting confirmation. my dad got to go visit his parents about a week or so ago, and all his siblings were there, which was really nice to see their family all together; my sister and her husband, and myself, plan to fly out next month to get a chance to at least see him and visit with my grandma while we can.

"maa … i don't like bothering you both; i know you're busy. but yamaji gave me a job to do, and well—you know how he gets." shunsui took a deep breath in through pursed lips, exhaling heavily after. "now, the jinja hime incident doesn't have a lot of information to go over … but it does have the responding officer's name who signed off on it. former captain of the 10th division—shiba isshin."

the only payment plan our vets offer is "pay over the month", but because its the 30th, it still would have only given us until tomorrow. the other plan they offer is a loan with a private practice middle-man, but they won't accept us because our collective credit score is low.

fatima aamer bilal, from we were put on this earth desperate, hungry and willing.