My Mental Illness

My mental illness is..

My mental illness is not me,
… It is just part of me.

I am human, I feel, I bleed,
And yet you judge me without ever knowing me.

I am a poet and unique, only of a kind of me,
You won't find anyone else exactly like me.

We are all human and have our faults,
But not you. it seems.

You go pointing the finger, calling me sick,
Unstable too, but you don’t even know me , old lady.

What you do to or say about me,
Cuts me deeper than the knife I hold.

What goes around comes around,
And you, well you get to judge me in your twisted bitter way.

I was diagnosed with a mental illness back in 99,
After a mini-stroke, poetry saved my life, but you took that away.

I have seen the desert of Afghanistan,
Touched the sea in Cuba, shook a communist’s hand.

My life, it is a disability of the mind.,
That is what scares you because you hate my kind.

I want to say thank you for ending my life,
Making me so insecure,

What did I ever do to you?
Apart from writing Dr D, the truth

With your bitter, twisted words of judgemental hate,
because you think you have the right?