“Smoking Did This To Me”

Had my ears deceived me,

Did the doctor say I have cancer,

It can’t be,

Please let it be a dream,

Sadly it’s not a dream, the days and nights that will come,

Will bring much suffering and pain, I only hope for my family’s sake,

I can handle the strain,

It’s not that I want to die,

Or quit without trying to get well,

But these treatments are making me sick,

My hair is falling out, and I look a mess,

My family stands by my side,

Trying to encourage me and build my pride,

I try to tell them to quit smoking

Some of them joke that smoking won’t do this them,

I see their faces and I know,

Even though I lay here in a hospital bed,

Had I not caught my cancer soon enough,

Because of smoking, I could be dead,

They say I am getting better,

Yet I feel worse,

Who created this terrible curse,

Cancer,

Please let the day come,

When the treatments are all done,

That I can get well and carry on with my life,

That all the suffering that I have gone through,

Won’t have been in vain,

That one day my family and friends who now smoke,

Will realize that smoking is no good,

That the Lord above hears my prayers,

That after all this I live for many years,

That my friends and family knows and understands my plight,

That I wasn’t right to smoke and not care about the Cancer that I now fight,

That having beat my cancer,

Has given me a different outlook on life,

One without cigarettes and the plague that they bring,

So one day like me they won’t have to hear those words,

You have cancer there is little we can do.

Ó Paul Faulkenham, 2009