Poem: I Want to Be A Kinder Person

I Want to Be A Kinder Person

but I am in pain, now,
am mad and hurting
and not all that sympathetic.
I wasn't shown sympathy,
wasn't understood,
but I try to be better than that,
or want to be, at least,
want to try to be,
but it is difficult,
right now it is.
I am trapped
in my own hurt.
I know there is worse,
that I am still lucky
in many regards,
but it does not change 
that I am suffering,
and that is bigger,
most of the time,
is the thing I notice.
It takes up so much.
It takes up all the room 
inside of me
with my own pain
and I do not notice
the world any longer.

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