Reverting To Words...

,,,because sometimes, only words will do.  This week is ME awareness week; read more about it here.  There are a lot of events happening across the country, across the world, in fact, including Millions Missing, where shoes are set out, labelled with their owners' stories, to indicate the way in which they are missing from the event, and indeed, to some extent, from their own lives.  I can't go to the Edinburgh event (at the Mound, if you want to go along), so I thought I'd mark it with a poem.

Wasting My Energy : A Poem For ME Awareness

You. Yes, you. You who can dance

Whenever you want.  Stroll

Unconcerned wherever you

Wish, run for a mile, or a

Bus without thinking.  Work, laugh or play

Without consequence.  

You really don’t get it, now do you?

Here sit I, wheels for feet,

Buses a distant memory.  Oh yes,

My legs work, and the rest of me: I can

Stand up, point a toe, take a few

Careful steps, then sit down hard

Gasping for breath.

And that will make me

A fraud in your eyes;  that is,

If you see me at all.  Invisible,

That’s me.  (It’s got something to do

With the chair).

Humour me, just for a moment.

Imagine a world filled with pain,

Every action carefully planned, consequences

Weighed up and measured, that is

If just rising from bed can be managed..

Imagine your life without action,

Interaction, meaning: you’re imagining

Mine.  Nobody asks for ME; it just

Happens one day, irreversible,

Misunderstood.  No testing,

Diagnosis or cure.  No treatment.

No sympathy.  Just judgement,

And the shaking of heads. It’s no

Way to live. It’s all there is.

You still don’t get it, do you?

I really tried.