For Just Five Minutes

If you could understand what this was like, for just five minutes, you would never look at me that way again. 

You would know, in just five minutes, what the sheer horror of every nerve in your body on flaming fire feels like. 

It might make you pull your hair from your scalp and scratch your eyeballs out, just to detract from the pain, for just five minutes. 

If you knew what this felt like, for just five minutes, you would never view me with the cold eyes of doubt again. 

You would not laugh at me and tell me getting older gives you memory problems too, if you could live with this for just five minutes. 

Oh no, just five minutes would bring you to your knees, give you a frightening glimpse of this disease, the war waged inside me every moment of my life. 

Would you understand me more, believe me better, comprehend my panic and sorrow, after just five minutes of pain? 

Perhaps you wouldn't tell me to get over it already. Snap my fingers and just decide, if you were to know this intimately for just five minutes.

I might even venture to say compassion would overtake your judgment, after you knew what this felt like, it would only take five minutes.

Could I be so lucky you would rejoice at every gathering I attend, dinner I cook, load of laundry I wash, for just five minutes?

I believe you would know, in just five minutes, how remarkable it is I get out of bed each morning. 

What a warrior I am for completing a day of work, after just five minutes of misery. 

Five minutes would share so much, but this is not something I want to share with you. 

It is something I want to eradicate from the world, wave a magic wand, cross my fingers and toes, throw a penny in a pond. Anything to not have this anymore, for just five minutes. 

But if I had to look into your eyes, and see five minutes of pain, I don't think I could bear it, to know you felt the same.

Thanks for joining,
Leah