I am a cancer host

Host (biology) an organism that harbors a parasite inside its body, detrimental to itself

I am not a cancer sufferer

I am not a cancer patient

I am not a cancer victim

I am not fighting cancer

I am an unwitting and unwilling cancer host

I am not hosting a cocktail party or dinner for a few friends

I am a host for a parasite which is silently consuming me to fuel its own mindless growth

Stealing my energy sources, it feeds upon my insides and grows disgusting lesions and tumors inside me

And I have no way to defend myself...but I can track its progress day by day, through my own decay

Scans show its creeping onslaught through various parts of my body via different paths

Every new ache or pain is accompanied by the same frightened thought: Is this the cancer moving again?

It’s an insensate and non-conscious, lumpy entity that, nonetheless, knows how to feed upon me to grow

Stubbornly resilient despite surgeries, radiation, drugs and chemo, its inexorable expansion continues

Alive only through my life, nourished by my metabolism, it is unaware that its own success will kill it, as well

For when I can no longer sustain both myself and this hungry parasite, we will, of course, die together

So, I ask this invading zombie-like army: To what end?...The same question this deadly leech forces upon me

It seems its sole purpose is simply to kill me but then to merely perish when it succeeds

Therefore, this is not a real life form, but something gone very wrong with my own cellular reproduction

Yet, it acts like a simple parasitic infection