A Childhood Cancer Survivor Poem
© 2016 Christine Mulvihill
Head down through the halls
She walks eyes fixed on the floor and walls,
Don’t look up just look down
Just keep your head facing the ground.
No one wants to see your face
She thinks herself such a disgrace
Alone she walks and invisible she feels
The image she sees is so unreal
She has no confidence and doubts her worth
She wants to remove herself from the earth.
First period was a bore
She answered nothing and stared at the board
Second period she hides in the back row
Staring silently, the clock moves so slow.
Now its lunch but she won’t eat
She won’t be social she’s no friends to meet
Sits in the library with a stack of books
While she hides her eyes from bad looks.
Third period always goes by like a breeze
She’s no Martha Stuart but home ec. is a tease.
Oh no hold your breath
Now its gym, this can be death
She plays along in her shorts and soccer tee
But she doesn’t compare with her skinny arms and knobby knees
Back in the dressing room she’s no chatter box
She sits quietly and combs her dark brown locks.
She sees herself all alone in life
She’ll never have kids or be a wife
She hates herself, she hates her world
And this is how it ends for the sad little girl.
In the morning at sunrise
She lacks the strength to open her eyes
An empty pill bottle and note on the door
Her lifeless body on the floor.
No one should feel how she did
All alone and love forbid
All she needed was to know someone cared
And maybe then she wouldn’t be lying there.
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