Poem: What It Is To Be Me

You don’t know
What it is to be me.
To be at war with oneself
Every moment
Waking or sleeping.
You can’t imagine
The pain I hold
Always in my heart.
You don’t understand
How I can struggle so much
While shining so bright.
Let me tell you
My dear
The brightest of stars
Casts the longest of shadows.
If I could
I would let you feel
Even for a moment
What it is to be me.
Or maybe I wouldn’t
For fear of my darkness
Snuffing out your light.
Yet for all of that
I would be no one else.
For one cannot
Truly know the light
Until
One has fully known the dark.
And though I have
Such a great darkness
It only makes my flame
All the stronger
All the brighter
All the warmer.
Praise God
For making me
Who I am.