“You have to be strong.”

Those were the words my mother said to me when I was most weak,

When everything in my life seemed bleak.

 

As I was crying on the cold, hard ground,

The twilight of my youth slowly settling,

Crying from the upsetting news my doctor had found,

My mother said the very words I was dreading.

 

It’s not fair, I thought,

For I had been strong all my life,

Even as a child I had fought,

And persevered through strife.

 

Yet now Life had bestowed upon me a gift,

One of a double edged blade,

That is very difficult to lift,

And I wish it were never made.

 

For there are not one, but two sides,

Of the strange contraption,

One where my Rheumatoid Arthritis resides,

And the other, where Lupus is the main attraction.

 

And now I must lift the blade up high,

So it won’t turn on me instead,

Even though I’m very tired and want to lie,

My weary body on my bed.

 

But while fatigue and arthritis in my body reign,

I cannot lie down forever,

I have to keep fighting through the pain,

And try my best to endeavor.

 

I must try my best to achieve my dreams,

My best to achieve my goals,

And though things are worse than they seem,

I know I can, in my heart and soul.

 

For I must become like the Phoenix that rise,

Through the ash and decay,

And be the light that fills the skies,

For it is the only way.

 

There is no other direction to go,

No other path or way,

The only way that I know,

Is to survive each day.

 

For after the dark night comes the dawn,

In all of her shining glory,

And when the darkness has withdrawn,

I can try to write my story.

 

But in that devastating moment,

I yearned for my youth to stay,

I did not wish for this chronic enrollment,

Even on this very day.

 

So when I think of myself on the floor,

In the last moments of my childhood,

I know that life had then opened a door,

That would change my life for good.

 

Thus, the twilight of my youth has come and gone,

And I am no longer a child,

And though for its return I long,

It is a fact that I have reconciled.

 

“You have to be strong”

I now understand, for before I did not,

For strength will give me the upper hand,

For the battle that must be fought.