Morning everyone, and welcome to another Crap poem.
This time, after my most recent poems were quite lighthearted I decided to talk a bit more seriously about what it feels like to be this lonely when you are technically so young.
Disbelief over both my symptoms and my housebound status, along with my bloody age, make it impossible for people I desperately need to offer some meaningful help. In fact, what I experience most days is a total lack of understanding from the very people who are supposed to get it. Although it’s not all on them, NHS, I’m looking at you.
Anyway, rant over (until the poem). Here’s what I wrote.
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Scared of lonely
I sit here in my loneliness
Knowing few could live this way
The silence beats you to a pulp
It happens every day
Early fourties, stuck indoors
For over two long years
But stigma and age-based biases
Mean I’m disbelieved, in tears
I live online, chat to a screen
My only friend my phone
This is the chronic illness life
You’re better off alone
Desperate to be heard and seen
I can’t believe my life
But it’s all real, just look and see
this pain cuts like a knife
I look skywards each night at three
And beg those in the sky
To help me out and make my world
Worthwhile of one more try
My dreams are now mundane and dull
Things others take for granted
The school run and some pub grub too
My yard with peonies planted
When you’re indoors it’s hard to be
Believed by those you’re needing
Offence is thrown at every chance
Accused of being misleading
I’ve missed all birthday parties
I haven’t cut my hair
My partner gets the shopping
I haven’t stepped the stairs
Life indoors sounds like a laugh
Just crash and watch tv
But reality ain’t good at all
And no one ever sees
As time goes by you lose your strength
And fear replaces fun
You’re desperate to be socialised
Laugh and feel the sun
I cry at every challenge faced
Because i can’t repair it
I lay awake, redundant pain
And sob ‘cause life is pure shit
The hours drag my broken brain
Through mud and broken dreams
The searing pain jumps round my bod
Silent joint and muscle screams
I know that help is what I need
To change the status quo
But building trust is now so hard
I don’t know where to go
But happy favours those with strength
The strength to make it through
Is it really wise to fight this fight
Without self-love that’s true?
So what’s the answer, how can I
fight on with this pained war?
Where’s the safest place to push
my foot beyond the door?
I have no answers, it’s been two years
But as Sam Ryder calls
It’s “better to have fought and lost
than never fought at all”
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And if you haven’t heard Sam Ryder’s latest song, Fought and Lost, then I highly recommend the version used on Ted Lasso.
Thanks for reading 💜
Creative Steph 