My Protest

My Wheelchair

It seems to me you wish I’d disappear,

Fad into the crowd and assimilate,

Where my difference no longer registers,

You know, I want that too!

I don’t enjoy being isolated,

Made to feel like I don’t belong,

Like I shouldn’t be allow to shop,

Or feel my wheelchair is in the way.

Because my wheelchair is in the way,

It is the barrier ─  between you and me,

Regardless of intelligence or personality

All you chose to see is my wheelchair.

It’s not your flight of stairs,

Your narrow hallways and poky toilets,

No!  It’s my wheelchair,

I clearly do not belong!

You prefer, I’d disappear . . .

Not to be stuck at the bottom of . . .

Your staircase . . .

You prefer I was not hear at all!

My bills for food, transport and medical costs,

Scene as a merely drain on the public purse,

Count as a person because I was born,

Not because you are humane and give dignity.

My wheelchair ─ that gives me life,

Access to the outside world beyond my house,

A reason to embrace the narrow out of life

And the ability to work and help others.

My Wheelchair

Is the Barrier ─ between us,

What separates our sense of entitlements,

and excludes me from your world.

Not like your twisted words sound,

You make out like you want me and need me,

Rubbish! You just don’t want to waste,

Your money on someone, you wished would disappear. 

Debbie Chilton (c) Copyright 2014