Just get over it, she said.

Were these words simply a cruel joke?

I never expected to hear them

From the walking medical degree in a lab coat.

Shouldn’t you be smarter than that? I wanted to scream.

But my chest constricted,

Para-

Para-

Paralyzing me.

 

Eighty five pounds, not wanting to eat,

Waiting for my trembling to alleviate

So that I could

Maybe

Get some sleep

 

But you don’t see that do you?

 

God, I pray incessantly.

Give me lesions, boils, blood.

Turn me gray, black, neon green.

Anything

To get them to see that there’s something wrong.

 

 

Until you fear impending death.

Until you feel your heart bounding out of your chest.

Do not tell me that I’m not anxious,

Don’t you dare tell me I’m not depressed.

 

If I had the power or the influence

To change

A societal paradigm,

I would transform the way our world views

Those with disorders

Of the mind.

 

In a culture where mental illness

Is treated tantamount to physical disease,

Recovery would be a lot easier

For schizophrenics, for phobics,

For me.

 

In the end, we are just like you.

We just have different battles to overcome,

Different trials to go through.

 

This poem is not a wish.

It is not a hopeless desire.

This is a testament

To what I will

Change,

To what I am

Accomplishing.

 

Transforming the perspective of

A city, a nation, a world

Requires relentless work, and

I would be a fool to expect anything less.

But I continue to smile. Because,

After all, progress is

Progress.