The Ugly Truth

There was a happy poem posted on the door of my English classroom. I read it, hoping that in some way it would bring me peace. Instead, it broke me to see that the author’s reality was less bleak than mine. Reading it made me feel like I was the only one that the world had brought pain and suffering to.

In class our teacher told us about a poetry contest and read us examples of great works that had won previously. One of them was about the love a girl felt for her significant other and another was about a son finding an idol in his father. They made me feel alone. Everyone that I loved was gone.

I wrote a poem that day. I challenged the status quo. Who said that happy poems are better than ones that paint a picture of despair? I wrote a poem about my father’s dying breath. It featured the reality of a hole being cut for a feeding tube to fit into. It showcased the reality of cancer that made the one person I truly loved look like a Holocaust victim.

The ugly truth was that no one wanted to read that poem. They would take the first few lines to realize what it was about, then turn away. It was too sad to picture. No one wanted to see the reality of the world; they just wanted to see the lie.

Today I met a girl with cancer who had merely three weeks of life left. She asked to read one of my poems. My hands shook with fear as I handed her the poem about my dad’s cancer. She was already fragile and I was scared to break her more.

That girl, who should have had no hope and felt totally hopeless after reading my poem, smiled. I was always told that my poem was too sad so I asked her what there was to smile at. She answered by simply saying that I hadn’t tried to make beauty out of a monster.

I painted the truth, which wouldn’t have been good enough to someone that hadn’t been broken down by the world. To her this truth was something that needed to be told, but to others it was the truth that they had been hiding from their entire lives.

That girl taught me a lesson today. I learned that I should not be trying to give hope by painting a beautiful lie, but I should be trying to give reality by painting the monstrous truth. Eventually everyone will be left feeling empty from the world and only then will they accept the truth of my poetry.