So often I am in pain. My lips become cracked, sore and dry from screaming. The painful times are silent. I am alone. The seldom times that are not full of pain are not quiet though. They whisper about me. My family. My family? But yes. They are.

I know they whisper about me. I don't know what they say, but they whisper. They talk anxiously to the person who pokes things inside me. Tubes and wires. Things that hurt.

In the night, the dark, other things whisper to me. Things with cool hands. They caress my feverish body. They whisper promises. They promise relief.

I want to fall into their arms, to die, to end it all. I want to … but I can't.