Disability Arts Online

I know how to laugh at the absurdity of humanity and myself, I can laugh until my stomach aches, but I can also cry to the point of not wanting to live, and I can do both in the same day. Some will say that is bipolar; I will say it is a human response to human things.

This last year has been tough. This time last year, my dad, one of my abusers, got knocked down and sustained brain damage, which accelerated his already present dementia. That incident last year kicked off a whole series of consequences, which has made me feel disconnected with my family. My family were my bedrock of strength before hand, and I have lost my steady ground to walk upon. I have to now recreate my new road before me without knowing where I am going, and with the fragile pieces of my confused heart.

But I am not completely lost, my creativity is there to make this arid soulland beautiful in any way it knows how, or to tell the world: there is a war going on here. As Nigel Henderson, the artist said, 'Art is the battleground of the soul'. 

I feel haunted at the moment, demons are playing hide and seek with everyone of my breaths. Poetry for me is never going to be sedate, it is me fighting for my very own soul.

Father's day recently was my most recent battle, and here is the outcome:

In the old people’s home
Is my skinny monster
Hell is greying now
Hell is getting forgettable
Hell is getting old, so old 

My monster is wetting himself
My monster has dementia
My monster does not know he haunts me 

Why are you still so powerful
And I am still so weak? 
I can’t get out of the room
I can’t grow bigger than one foot tall 

The monster threw me against the wall
Kept pushing me to the ground
Every time I tried to get up 
I deserved it
I was a 2 year old cunt
The monster would leave me alone in that cold dark room.
All night, alone, the small room went on forever.
A 2 year old can understand horror, desolation
A 2 year old can want death
A 2 year old can carry so much fear
That it my heart is coated with it 40 years later 
I cried for my monster to come back 
He did come back 
To haunt me 

Another poem, along the same theme:

HAUNTED, AGED 2
What is this thing that haunts
That as a child scared me
How did I know to be scared of it?
And why was I scared of it?
An empty merry go round, frozen horses
Dancing in circles
The ice cream van tinkling its  saccharine mantra
The nursery song, ‘boys and girls go out to play…’
The dolls without eyes…

There was no screaming monsters
No violent hatred
That came next
No haunting there except the ghost
Of the dead child I learnt to become

To be a baby, a little child
And know haunted

Humanity, you were broken to begin with.