Tag: disability

• The chronic illness

  Maybe I’m asking too much

  I’m not just asking for compassion

  But trust in my words

  Taking my truth at face value

  The whole is greater than the parts

  You may have had my symptoms before

  But living with them everyday

  Is a different experience

  When you break a bone

  Eventually the cast comes off

  When you get a cold

  Eventually you get better

  I live in a world where better is relative

  There is no perfect health to have

  When living in a broken body.

  2025-09-08

  disability, Poem, poetry

  ---

• you don’t wish murder

  You don’t think you want to kill me

  You believe in survival of the fittest

  You fight for individual freedom

  Apathetic to laws that’d sterilize me

  You wish me to silence

  As I remind you of mortality

  You wish me to be invisible

  You can’t imagine what you can’t see

  You wish me to be magically healed

  But you deny to wishing me dead

  You believe yourself sympathetic

  Long as I don’t turn a mirror on reality.

  2025-08-25

  disability, Poem, poetry

  ---

• transitory health

  Health is fluid, it isn’t permanent

  But most get more good health 

  While I get more bad health

  My good days are the exception

  While their good days are the rule

  So I know why you ask silly questions

  Like when I will get better 

  Or why can’t a doctor fix me

  Because you don’t get this is good

  You can’t comprehend my bad

  So I try not to be mad

  At your limited understanding 

  I wouldn’t wish my reality on anyone.

  2025-07-28

  disability, Poem, poetry

  ---

• not murdered today

  Some consider me expendable

  No one is trying to kill me today

  Even if they were, it’d be passive

  Because my genetics are a blight

  My mental health is faulty

  I’ve aged out of breeding stock

  Skills I have aren’t enough

  For my perceived burden

  But if there was an emergency

  I’m the heard that will be thinned

  My story isn’t compelling enough

  To be on the priority list.

  2025-06-16

  disability, Poem, poetry

  ---

• health is a beauty standard

  The expectation of health

  It more than just surface

  We are supposed be perfect

  To aim to be Olympic

  Eugenics is selection of the fittest

  Trying to erradicate bad genes

  Forgetting that we are all human

  Lack of health is a social sin

  Akin to failed beauty

  The flawed are shamed

  Blamed for their imperfection

  When we didn’t ask to be born

  We survive what birth gave us.

  2025-06-02

  disability, Poem, poetry

  ---

• not perpetual children

  Needing help isn’t childish

  I can be competent and struggle

  My survival isn’t perfect

  My health may not match yours

  My gender may not be male

  Neither deserve to be patronized

  You don’t get to infantilize me

  Don’t have to be a genius to think

  Don’t be obsessed with hierarky

  Learn compassion and do better.

  2025-05-19

  disability, Poem, poetry

  ---

• death isn’t a compliment

  Don’t suggest my life is unlivable

  At best a backhanded compliment

  At worst you’re saying I unalive

  Your eugenic viewpoint is sad

  Because age comes for us all

  And good health isn’t guaranteed

  Whatever struggle I may live with

  My existence is worthwhile

  I refuse to let you speak ill of me

  Only I get to lament my disability

  Sometimes it isn’t about better

  But about not choosing bitter

  Being grateful for this life.

  2025-04-28

  disability, Poem, poetry

  ---

• why aren't you better

  Medical coding won’t let them

  Treat random symptoms

  They need a diagnosis to treat

  Whatever is quick and easy

  So, I have a collection of diagnosis

  My medical chart is a muddy pool

  Without any helpful treatments

  Full of dismissal and contradictions

  Suggesting I’m faking or imagining

  If I visit them for a new symptom

  They might give me a new diagnosis

  But I don’t want another one

  Another reason for their rejection

  Another way to doubt what I say

  There is no cure for a medical mystery

  I’ve learned to live with my symptoms.

  2024-07-01

  disability, Poem, poetry

  ---

• today's is awful

  Some days I wish I could skip

  When it’s hard to sit up

  And the pain is persistent

  Treatement may take off the edge

  But background pain lingers

  All I can do is tough it out

  And wait for healing to happen

  Hoping tommorow is less awful

  I sleep as much as I can

  But some parts are spent awake

  And that is the part I want to forget

  I know things will get better

  And I want to live another day

  Just wish I could skip today.

  2024-06-24

  disability, Poem, poetry

  ---

• imagined illness

  When illness is not your life

  It’s a way to get out of expectation

  But when illness is everyday

  It’s an inescapable private truth

  More likely something you try to hide

  Until it can’t be hidden anymore

  It comes out when we can’t escape it

  The veracity of our truth is doubted

  Because the majority use it as a lie

  But it’s ill health we wish to lie about 

  If only our illness was imagined.

  2024-06-03

  disability, Poem, poetry

  ---

• no prayers, please

  The problem with you praying for me

  Is that your praying for God to fix me

  Because you think I’m wrong

  My life is sad and I must be saved

  But isn’t your God purposeful

  Maybe he put me here to test you

  To see if you can have compassion

  For someone that doesn’t fit

  Into your view of his world?

  2024-04-01

  atheist, disability, Poem, poetry

  ---

• Living within my limits

  What you consider lazy I live as survival
  My body doesnt work like yours
  If I work to hard I pay for it
  Not in a metaphorical life ballance way
  But in real life flemmy illness and pain
  I dont get to book my day full
  Unless I’m willing to crash many after
  Took years to accept my limitations
  Spent my youth acting physically normal
  And then crying when my body rebelled
  Wasnt until my thirties that I got a clue
  When I finally accepted my limitations
  Changed my attitude about my lack
  I choose whats important to me
  I’m independant and self supporting
  I’m proudly working disabled
  And, no, I dont have much else
  I had to give up the dream of more
  To truely appreciate what I have
  Stopped focusing on whats missing
  And, instead, focus on what I’ve got.

  2018-02-14

  disability, Poem, poetry

  ---

• Rant of exaustion

  My body punishes me for surviving
  each morning of getting up
  each week of going to work.

  I’m tired of being tired.
  And grounchy at being grumpy.
  And worked up about being anxious.

  Pain is not a plesant companion.
  Discomfort is not desired.
  Paranoia can piss off.

  All I want is to sleep a couple days
  so I can feel a little less extra
  be a smidge closer to okay.

  2018-02-03

  disability, Poem, poetry

  ---

• Viewpoints

  I dated a blind guy once
  He needed everything neat and orderly
  So he could memorize where to go
  I tried to keep things orderly
  So he could get around
  I was exausted trying to keep up
  Mess is a symptom of my fatigue
  He literally tripped over my disability
  I learned that we can have the same label
  But still have a very different experience.

  2017-07-04

  disability, Poem, poetry

  ---

• Webble wobble

  Inner ear ineffective
  Unsteadily upright
  Firmly flat feet
  Waddle wobble walk
  Balance broken
  Grace goes gone
  Dropping down
  Suddenly sitting
  Pause petulantly
  Ready for repeat

  2017-04-20

  disability, Poem, poetry

  ---

• Born a blue baby

  Struggling for breath
  Flemmy even then
  Used to wail to be fed
  Mom’d serve me
  Choke on my snot
  Throw up what I ate
  Mom cleaned me up
  And I’m wailing again
  Babies don’t choose
  Breath or hunger.

  2016-06-01

  disability, Poem, poetry

  ---

• Brainfog

  My memory is muddled
  Like a dirty pond
  My conciseness affected
  Flirting with delirium

  Better living through chemistry
  Is my way to clarity
  It doesn’t mean party drugs
  Or avoiding my reality

  I fight the dissociative
  Cling to sharp moments
  I can’t imagine
  Trying to be muted

  But this isn’t my choice
  My body fights pain
  By removing memory
  The wipe isn’t selective

  One moment naiveté like a newborn
  The next wise from trauma
  I don’t get to know what is lost
  I don’t get to decide what is kept

  Losing words and thoughts
  Not remember the details
  Sure makes harsh reality
  look better than lost reality.

  2016-02-26

  disability, Poem, poetry

  ---

• Anxious

  Suspended above my wakeful brain
  Invisible threads of dread
  Playing my mind as a marionette
  Spinning the worst-case scenario
  My awareness is blithely unaware
  Until I lay in bed, waiting for sleep
  Then a play is put into production
  It’s bright in the darkness
  Loud in the silence
  I regret what I don’t regret
  I question what I’m sure of
  I wish that I could go to sleep
  Because the inconsistency is fleeting
  A new morning brings a sharp mind
  No longer muddled by rumination
  Rest washes away the anxiety
  Gives me a clean slate
  If only night didn’t stand in the way
  Of that clear new day.

  2016-02-18

  disability, Poem, poetry

  ---

• Invisibility

  I know you don’t understand
  I’m not sure you ever will
  This isn’t something you can teach
  Because this isn’t teachable
  I struggle even to explain
  Your privaeledge is in the way
  But i don’t hold that against you
  No one wants this experience
  No one chooses this reality
  It is forced upon us unlucky
  And there’s nothing fair about it
  I’m sad my truth is in the way of us
  I’m resigned to the distance it creates
  But I’m also proud of myself
  For being honest about my world
  Even if that makes you uncomfortable.

  2016-02-13

  disability, Poem, poetry

  ---

• Nose don't knows

  I do not smell
  At least not well
  My olfactory sense
  Is impeded

  My nose is inert
  It doesn’t work
  Unless the stink
  Is quite pungent

  It tickles and twitches
  When the air is dusted
  It drips dew drops
  A trail of clear snot

  I do not smell
  This noses impaired
  A failed organ
  Sitten on my noggin.

  2015-06-03

  disability, Poem, poetry

  ---

• Dr. Doctor

  Bake me a man
  A kind gentle soul
  Who doesn’t depend
  On what the rest know

  Spin me a lady
  A sweet gentle soul
  That sees deep into me
  Feels what I know

  So much education
  Priveledge of health
  How they miss me
  Blinded by themself

  Dr. Doctor
  Listens selectively
  Sees only the obvious
  Compartmentalizes neatly

  Science knows what it knows
  I don’t doubt the facts
  But in practice science isn’t caring
  only a person can do that

  Maybe I need more than a doctor
  Maybe I need someone to hear
  Maybe I want someone to trust
  To share this unhealth I bear.

  2015-03-31

  disability, Poem, poetry

  ---

• This is how I don't get sick

  Everyday I get up

  Sit all day at work

  Come home for bed

  Each weekend I rest

  recuperate from the week

  get ready for monday

  There are no visitors

  on a weeknight or weekend

  just occasional family

  There is no spouse or kid

  because taking care of me

  is hard enough

  On rare occasion

  I do extra chores

  or steal a moment of fun

  Mostly, I live within

  the limit set by my body

  getting ready for monday

  This is how I don’t get sick.

  2013-12-14

  disability, Poem, poetry

  ---