Funny Girl Poem by Leah Ayliffe

I was surprised today
To learn that the girl who made the room laugh
Is the saddest in insane pain.
Hospitals were no stranger to her
The bottle was an enemy dressed as her best friend,
Wishing to die by any hand, even her own.
I was surprised but I shouldn’t have been
She made me laugh to tears
A real jokster kid with a sassy flare
And a pretty face too – she can’t see in the darkness.
She was the loudest girl in the room
Laughing along with us too, like it were everything.
An act of desperation, of deflection,
Hiding in the sound of what should be happiness,
She can't help it.

‘Cause inside each day
silently she is dying.