I Am “Sick Girl”

I am “sick girl.”

I wonder if there will ever be a way to get rid of the things that stop me.

I hear the people who understand me, my everything; my people.

I see the million sets of eyes on me, I stare back at them, I am no different.

I want to feel free from the chains of inability, longing to be like those around me.

I am “sick girl.”

I pretend to be like you, and all the rest, not me, nor I; just you.

I feel the air leaving me, my heart sinking to the balls of my heavy feet when they say, “Go help
her!” and I never even got a chance to try.

I touch my mother’s hidden worry as I hold her comforting smile between my small hands. It all
felt so condescending, her cold tears hit my warm beating skin as she held me tighter than
ever before.

I worry that my differences set me aside too far, isolation filling my deepest peace of mind; the
little girl inside me terrified.

I cry for being underestimated, as if held in a baby’s cradle, caged by a family who cares “too much”
for the porcelain doll, afraid I may break, crack, or shatter; too fragile, always dependent.

I am “sick girl.”

I understand there will never be a cure to “gift” me the luxury of normality others take for
granted.

“I will find a way someday,” I say, to help them understand,
I dream of being freed from the smothering cage of possessing love, no longer “sick girl” or the
fragile doll I never ought to be.

I try to make them all proud, to finally be equal, or more, “be smart” they say, yet I have much
more to prove, their typicality forever angering the flames of my envy.

I hope that someday I am seen as me and nothing else, that I can run just like you and win, by
never shattering like this again.

I am “sick girl.”

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Kasey Medina was born in Westminster, California, and was raised since age four in the downtown parts of San Bernardino. Medina has had a lifelong passion for fine arts, writing, and music. She recently placed second in the Poetry Out Loud County Finals representing San Bernardino County. She is a sophomore at Norton Science and Language Academy. She is doing her best to accomplish her goals in hopes of becoming an author.

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