Nescio Poem by Dallas Carter

I wish I could cry.
It's all that I've wanted to do for days.
But for some reason the tears won't come.
I feel the pain, and only the pain.

Frustration runs through my blood as I try
To determine what these emotions are.
I don't know exactly what I am feeling half the time.
Emotions are like foreign languages I can't translate.

I don't cope well with the things inside my head,
I find ways to distract myself, ways not to think.
I feel so alone, lost, confused, detached, frustrated, depressed.
I want to reach out to someone, to let them in.

But I can't, I don't know how, I'm scared of what they'd think.
I'm not normal, if you couldn't tell, and I never was.
I don't belong, I don't fit in, I don't match the rest.
Nothing about me is the same as you, or ever will be.

My thoughts have thoughts of their own,
Deep thoughts, dark thoughts, scary thoughts.
I hate being left alone inside of my head for too long.
It's dangerous in there, the things that lurk just past my eyes.

You won't see it by looking at me, or talking to me.
People spend eight months seeing me every day
And they would never expect what they would find inside.
My friends think they know me, but really they don't.

I've been diagnosed for the things I cannot describe.
I've seen things I wouldn't wish my worst enemy to see.
I've heard things that are too dark for horror movies.
I've felt things that I literally have no words for.

You don't always know what someone else is going through.
What goes on behind the curtain, when the lights go off.
The demons that haunt the girl sitting next to you.
The cuts hidden by the sleeves on your roommate's hoodie.

People say they want to get to know me,
But once they learn just one thing, just one memory
They leave me, they think I'm too depressing to be around.
What they don't know is the pain their actions cause me.

All I ever wanted was for a place to fit in.
Somewhere that I belong, where people don't laugh,
Snickering about me when they think I can't hear them.
An escape from the looks I get for being different.

Church is my only escape from the pain.
When I sit in the crowd, singing hymns, listening to testimonies,
That's the only time I am at peace with my thoughts.
Because the Spirit overpowers the darkness in my mind.

But as soon as I make it back home, that's when the feelings come back.
I don't understand emotions, I don't know what to do with them.
And then I end up the way I am now,
Lost because I can't recognize certain feelings.

My brain resorts itself back to what it knows, what is familiar.
Depression, self-hatred, fear, loneliness.
Those are my life, created by the things that lurk just beyond.
What you see and what I feel are two completely different things.

I don't know where I'm going with this, but in truth
Do I ever know where I'm going with what I say?
The answer is no, I just sit down and I write.
Truth is, I don't know if it's even my writing the words you read.

When I write all I do is sit here, letting the words come to me.
Inspiration hits, I know what I want you to know,
But that's about as far as I go in this process.
The words do the work, they come to me, I just write them.

Some things work like that for me, I really can't explain it.
It's like something inside of me telling me what to say,
What to write, who to read it to, who to talk to, etc.
I know I can't tell you what I think, because sometimes, I don't even know.

My thoughts belong to someone else inside my head,
But I don't know who. All I know is they exist.
Maybe someday I will find them, but it's a labyrinth in there.
The walls in my mind keep the world out.

Maybe I like it that way, maybe I loathe it.
I can't really tell, just like anything else.
Maybe I should end this poem here, make you wait for the next one.
Keep you on your toes waiting for a glimpse of what I'll say next.