If Only You Knew Poem by Erika Wingo

I can't move
I can't speak
Barely able
To get out of bed
It's hardly worth the effort
It takes just to breathe
Stripped long ago
Of all my willpower
I have grown so weak
Neither my body nor my mind
Possess even an ounce of energy
I now know
I'll never be free
If only you knew
What it's like to be me

I used to be afraid of dying
But that was before
Living became so hard
I don't know what's worse,
The shame or the anger
Ever since I became
This awful stranger
In this darkness
Breeds only negativity
If only you knew
What it's like to be me

Heavy thoughts
A heavy heart
It's way too late
For a new start
Too far gone
To try again
Each day that I live
Is one day closer
To the end
The end of all this madness
No more pretending
To feel normal
To be sane
But I'll never find peace
My choices in life
Guarantee eternal pain
If only you knew
What it's like to be me
You would never look at me
The same

You would avert your eyes
Avoiding my questioning gaze
You would pretend
Not to hear me cry
And I would pretend
Not to cry anyway
You'd withdraw your love from me
A little more each day
Until you'd feel only
Indifference toward me
Then you would walk away
And I would end up
Right where I always do
Solitary and stuck deep inside
The layers of my pain
If only you knew
What it's like to be me
Locked up in my own personal prison
Bound with the invisible chains
Of so much guilt and misery
With only myself to blame