How Would You Feel

You think you know exactly how I feel
you think you can sympathize
you think all the junk I've been through
is not a big deal
well let me ask you some questions
and I want you to listen
and really try to see what it's like for me
to live this thing you call a life.

How would you feel if from the time you were four
you were hearing screaming and whispers
that didn't seem to register
on anyone else's radar?
How would you feel if you finally made a friend
and in the quiet of her bedroom she bossed you around
and teased and tormented you to know end?
How would you feel if
at the tender age of five
you so wanted to be accepted
that you pulled your pants down for her dad?
How would you feel if he raped you over and over and then
told you it was normal and
anyway if you told about it
you and your family would end up dead?
How would you feel if
you were so confused and mislead
that you didn't know how to contain all the fury and lies
that were building up inside
so you through temper tantrums so bad
that your own dad would have to hold you down
to keep you from hurting yourself?
How would you feel if at the age of ten you realized
the only way to numb your pain
was to starve yourself to near death?
How would you feel if you got so thin
they stuck you in a hospital bed with a tube up your nose
and EKG leads on your chest
how would you feel if you spent most of your teenage years
locked up in psych wards
getting tied down to beds.
and getting medicated so deeply into a fog
that you couldn't find your own thoughts
How would you feel if they stuck labels on you left and right
like you were some kind of package getting prepared to be Fed-Exed
How would you feel if after months in the psych unit
you were dying to go home
but instead they sent you to a residential treatment program
How would you feel if you continued too crash
and became more familiar with the hospital staff
then your own mom and dad?

You wouldn't feel good.
That's all I can say
It's scary
it's disconcerting
it's really unfair
and the worst part is when you tell me that
it's perfectly normal
and you know how I feel
because it's not
and anyone who knows what I've been through
could tell you that.