Elsie Doll's story

Tell Me I’m Normal  By Elsie Doll
 My family said not a word about it, 
So I believed it was only I who shook 
For no reason at all. 
I was thirteen when tremor tentacles 
Wrapped round my self-esteem. 
I had no quarrel with life to deem 
Me nervous as thought by my family. 
Yet there it was consuming me, 
A trembling like their’s denied. 
In the privacy of my soul I cried, 
Is there anyone to tell me I’m normal! 
With trepidations, I left my family 
In search of others not nervous, yet shaky, 
And low and behold to my wondrous surprise, 
I found scores of people supplied 
With tremors and healthy esteem inside. 
I stared and they said, “Hey, you shake too! 
Do you not know that staring is rude?”
 “Ironic,” I said. “As I hate stares at me.”
I became a member of their club ET,
And my self-esteem rose to where it should be.