side effects may include.

(a)
she's in the hospital because she doesn't eat and doesn't
sleep and doesn't believe in god. he's in the hospital
because he's slowly dying. she imagines him at night
and paints pictures of him standing in the corner of her
room, leaning heavily on his IV stand, smiling softly. his
head is the moon in her dreams and his hospital gown
is a canvas of blankness hiding his ribs his pelvic bone
his thinness.

(b)
sometimes they lay together, two perfect skeletons.
this is where she tells him that her mother's get well
card had hearts on the front but threats of burning in
hell on the inside and that she uses the ratty old bible
her mother had given her as a coaster for her glasses
of water. this is where he tells her that he's not afraid
of dying and relates his chemotherapy to an angry,
frazzled dog chewing on his bone marrow.

this is where she cries for the first time in almost a year.

(c)
i used to be an artist, she would say, playing
with the scratchy ends of her hair. he would stare at her
hair and then hand her a limp box of crayola markers.
draw something pretty on me, he would say. and
at the end of the day the nurses would fold his gown like
he asked them to and lay it in the corner, then begin
scrubbing the marker from his arms and legs and head.

(d)
he's not afraid of dying but she is. she buries her face
into his shoulder and whispers, i wish i believed in god
so i would know that you'd be taken care of.

he still doesn't know how to respond to this.

(e)
sometimes she does not picture him standing in the corner
of her room, smiling ― no, sometimes she has pictures of
him from the days when the chemotherapy makes him
frail and makes him vomit and she can see him trembling,
and sometimes she reaches out to touch the corner of
the bible sitting on her side table. sometimes, she actually
prays.

(f)
on the day she is discharged, she writes him a letter. her
handwriting is so lovely, and she says, i know that you
really enjoy british films. i will bring you every british film
on this earth until you have seen every single one, and
i will bring as many grape popsicles as i can because i know
they're your favorite during treatments. i know they have
posicles here but mine will be different because mine will
be called 'frozen lollies', and mine won't make your teeth
hurt from the coldness.

she signs it with a red heart, drawn with a crayola marker.