POETRY | MENTAL HEALTH
The Proof of Pain
a free-verse poem on being called an ‘attention-seeker’ when your pain is invisible
They need me to bleed to prove that my pain is real
and when i do, they turn their backs on me,
like i’m suddenly untouchable,
like this sadness, this eerie,
invisible agony within me
is somehow contagious.
Then they say that my version of pain is ludicrous,
my pain is harmless, hence less worthy of tending to,
my pain is delusional and that maybe i am delusional
and the only pain that is and will ever be significant is
when you bleed,
when you are wounded,
when you scream out loud,
when you stumble and fall.
But when i dry my throat, run out of tears
telling them…
about the ink that i bleed to make sense of
all the chaotic thoughts in my head,
about wounds i carry of raw, unrecoverable
traumas and grief,
about crying and screaming my lungs out
underwater in my bathtub with deafening
music on,
about falling into a dark black hole of endless
apathy,
of total…
