Statistic Woman

I was the statistic
of a black teen
pregnant at sixteen,
ignoring momma
when she said
that boy don’t love you.

I was the miracle
survivor, crawling my way
from couch to toilet
losing ten, twenty,
thirty pounds

the doctor said
brain cancer.

I laid in bed
my sickness getting
worse; my son
pacing outside my room
as I dreamed of days

when I cradled my daughter
in my sixteen-year-old
arms, promising
to love and protect her.

Until it was no longer
brain cancer
but graves’ disease,
a sickness I could not
wrench from my body
though I prayed

to the Lord,
a beggar in need of respite.

The cure nearly slipped
through my fingers,
I wept
doctors said,
this has to be it.

The sky opened up
the preacher’s wife entered
you are not dying today.

I am the statistic
who threw the sheets
off me and
ran down
Lexington Avenue

I begged the Lord
to wash my sickness
from my skin
fill my son, my daughter
with relief

as I stood
in the arms of God
a miracle statistic.