Normal To You

I wish my illness showed symptoms

I really do

Like a rash

A cold

Or a missing limb

I wish I had smoke

Come out of my head, billowing

When I feel like my head is on fire

As I look to the distance

Instead, I look normal to you

I wish the room would reverberate

When my heart feels like it would burst

When my throat would not open

No matter how much I will it to

As I struggle to swallow air

Instead, I look normal to you

I wish the ground would freeze over

When my brain, well-armed with hurtful memories

Will pelt me in the middle of the day

Ballistic and unexpected

As I stand frozen in a crowd

Instead, I look normal to you

I wish I would bleed

When emotional scars are reopened

When my past wounds get salted

By my own brain

Who would not stop no matter how much I make it

As I try my hardest to clot it all

Instead, I look normal to you

My textbook mentions

Clammy hands, fatigue

Sleeplessness, irritability

But they do not even stand

For the weight of despair that I feel

How helpless it makes me, fighting my own brain

I am tired

Of having to constantly second-guess if you believe me

Or to be asked for a diagnosis

As if only a piece of paper

Would make all that I am feeling true

I wish the room would darken when I enter it

I wish you hear static when I’m around

I wish my tears stained my cheeks with tar

I wish demons would follow me wherever I go

So I can point to them

When you tell me

That I look normal to you