Staying Strong.docx

Staying strong I look at myself in the mirror each day and wonder why I am the way I am. Why after every torrent of tears there’s a rainbow. Why after every heart break I can smile. I wonder and wonder why I must be the strong one. Why must I be the one to talk my mother out of crazy ideas? Why after the divorce my mother cried and I held her. Why after every humiliation I came home and smiled and told her today was a good day. Why after the doctor said it’s your fault I stood in that narrow alley and watched my mother break down while my father walked away disgusted. Hey you with the horrible anxiety and depression. You, with the delusions and visions. You with the dreary vision. Your life is so simple. You can lock yourself away in a room and people will leave you alone and give you time to heal. LOOK AT ME.I break down and you get annoyed. If I break down I get scolded. Don’t I have the right to make it about me just this once? Where’s my hug and my ‘you’ll be ok?’ Just because I hold myself together doesn’t mean you can come to me with your pain and ignore me when it’s time to listen to mine. When you reply with a ‘K’ the beast of anxiety comes to gnaw at my gaping wounds but I hide it away. When you say you don’t feel good today I smile and walk away but I hide the pain I come to school with. I hide it all away in this palm sized thing called my heart. Or is the brain? Staying strong isn’t simple. It’s torture. Like when your burns heal and you’re thrusted into fire again. Each day I hope each day I mope and each day I hope again. At the end of the day, my chest tightens, pain shoots up my arm, tears spring to my eyes, the pain takes my breath away and I smile. I watch the tears blur by, the people spur by through the window, strangers sitting next to each other. I smile and I wonder.