Because you asked me.

I wouldn't write poetry about the way you sew the tiny little red branches in your wrists with tenderness and whim.

I wouldn't write poetry your sad empty eyes or the way they look at me begging for comfort and help.

I wouldn't write poetry about the days you starved yourself until the faries inside of you were too weak to even fly inside your stomach and give you chills. 

I wouldn't write poetry about the times you swallowed one too many pills because you simply didn't care for the next day, or the one after that.

I wouldn't write poetry about the afternoons you spent inside, because getting out of bed was just too much for you, or the nights sadness dropped from your eyes and you couldn't even feel it falling.

I wouldn't write poetry about your disease and I wouldn't romanticize the fact that you once wished you weren't alive for a second longer.

But I would write poetry about the way you love Disney movies and how they make you feel like a little kid.

I would write poetry about the funny nots in your hair and the constellation of freckles on your cheeks.

I would write poetry about your soft lips and the way you often find yourself biting them nervously.

I would write poetry about how when you sing, the whole world makes sense and there is no such thing as pain.

I would write poetry about the things I love about you, even though there is probably not enough pages in the world that I could use. I could write lists instead of poems, I could write so much. I could write until may arm falls off. But I wouldn't write about your illness, I wouldn't paste pretty words beside the thing that brings you down. I wouldn't write about how you hardly ever smile. I wouldn't make it sound poetic, because it's not. It hurts and it's eating you from the inside out. Your pain is not to be exploited in name of art, not by anybody who's not you. Your pain is yours to be felt and yours to defeat.