You Tell Me You’re Okay

“我没事”
After “The Farewell,” written and directed by Lulu Wang

Your tumors. They missed you,
so they came back for you.
Just in a different place,
crawling under your collarbone
and creeping around your neck.
Spreading. And. Spreading.

You tell me you’re okay
when I ask about your hospital visit,
and then you ask if I’ve been well.
If I’ve been eating and exercising.
I say yes and yes.
Not telling you I’ve been stuffing down
two dessert plates every night,
just to stop the cry from my throat
and failed because I realized
tears can be silent as I sat in the library crying
after a week of keeping to myself about
your condition.

Idon’tknowifIshouldtellyou.
Something called chemotherapy,
something you’ve had before,
the hair falling, lungs too weak to even cough,
the white hospital bed, the robotic nurses,
the blinding light. The doctors. The exams.
The clear tubes and tubes and needles in your thin skin.
The papers. On clipboards. With words. Relapse.
Idon’tknowifIshouldtellyou.
You tell me you’re okay.

—Karen Zheng

Karen Zheng is a first-generation, queer, Chinese-American college student currently attending Dartmouth College. She studies English and Creative Writing.