When all art is dead,
When dissenting opinion is all but extinct,
When all the crazy people you marginalize are healed,
Who will tell you that you've died inside?
Who will shine a light in the dark corners of your mind?
Who will make you ask yourself if maybe, just maybe,
Things are not as they really are?
Jul 23, 2016
Jul 23, 2016 at 2:32 AM UTC
Spending a month in a hospital teaches you a lot about people.
The doctor that told me to shave my head or she wouldn't treat me,
The nurses that spent forever chatting to me
And giving me supportive advice about how my illness doesn't define me.
The woman who was given a terminal cancer sentence
And chose not to pay attention to it and defied it anyway.
How she sat next to me on my bed,
Told me that all suffering is valid,
And just because I'm not dying, doesn't mean I don't get to complain.
How she complains more about her skin problems
Than she ever complained about her cancer,
And that's OK, because pain rarely follows rules.
I never even learned her name,
But she gave me the words I hold most closely to me
On those days when I want to fall asleep and never wake up.
I'm allowed to scream and shout and rage against the pain
And the unfairness of it happening to me.
I just have to make sure I know where the line is
Between giving my darkness a voice and pitying myself.
Jul 16, 2016
Jul 16, 2016 at 5:43 AM UTC