They Told Me To Laugh When I Was Crying Poem by Elena Plotkin

They told me to laugh when I was crying,
They told me to live when I was dying.
They told me to get up when I was down in the pits of hell.
They told me to climb on up from the spot that I fell.

Everything inside of me told me to rebel.
After all what did they know about my hell?
They have never been where I had been,
They have never seen the things I seen.
How could they tell me anything,
When they weren't going through the same thing?

But they told me to laugh when I was crying.
They told me to live when I was dying.
They told me to get up when I was down in the pits of hell.
They told me to climb on up from the spot that I fell.

Everything inside me told me to run.
Grab the bullets and load the gun.
They have never been where I had been,
They have never seen the things I seen.
How could they tell me anything,
When they weren't going through the same thing?

But they wouldn't let me be.
They didn't care what kind of hold hell had over me.
They weren't ready to let me go.
They didn't care how many times I yelled 'hell no'

They made me laugh when I was crying.
They made me live when I was dying.
They made me get up when I was down in the pits of hell.
They made me climb on up from the spot that I fell.
And thank God my parents did or this would've been a different tale.

(c) 2014 copyright Elena Plotkin