My life is not poetic.
I grew up sick on the bathroom floor
I learned that my stomach was broken and it would be until I was twelve
I learned how to swallow pills
I learned the directions to the hospital
And all of my doctors' phone numbers
I grew up at four in the morning
Horrified that if I cried too loud my parents would wake up,
Lonely and isolated,
No one to reach out to,
I learned that everybody else knew how to fall asleep
I grew up in hospital waiting rooms
I learned how to spit out the same information over and over again
I learned that I wasn't allowed to cry when they stuck needles in me
I learned that my body wasn't mine anymore until they learned how to fix it
I grew up like a lot of other people
Except I couldn't go on roller coasters
And I was good friends with the school nurse
I stayed home most of December my fifth grade year
After hospital tests, my daddy didn't make me go back to school.
First grade me remembers falling asleep in the MRI
Fifth grade me remembers giving up on therapy
High school me cut herself because she was afraid of getting sick
My life is not poetic
All the stuff in between sounds pretty
But some days I still wake up alone on the bathroom floor
Out of medication and out of hope because I was the small percent that didn't grow out of my genes when I was twelve
High school me has flashbacks to the hospital waiting rooms
I remember the face of the nurse who did the ultrasound
And the one who did my second x-ray
I grew up afraid of my own broken body that nobody quite knew how to put back together
Very honest poem about my struggle with chronic illness as a child and now into high school (CVS: the disorder, not the pharmacy). I hope that this can show a couple people that they are not alone. I probably don't know your pain, as every chronic illness is different, but I know how scary it is to get tested on and waiting to find out what's wrong and I know that a lot of things like this are not really discussed. I want to change that. I want people to talk about the chronic illness that don't get fundraisers or fancy ways to raise awareness. The easiest way to raise awareness is to just talk about it. So I hope that this will show some people that you shouldn't be embarrassed and really that we should be talking about these things. Please comment and share your stories :)