Illness isn’t a battlefield for punishment;
Its where humanity prove its worth or its absence
Illness is a cracked shell, fragile beneath the storm’s weight.
There’s no honor in being hardboiled, callous,
Wielding an axe, a weapon, cracking at a shell’s suffering.
Is compassion a faint light just out of reach?
Will jagged shadows of indifference prove humanity’s absence?
Written by Julette Prayogg / Loreen Herasingh
(© December 3, 2024)
Inspired today by someone I know with mental illness
When or how she imprinted on me is as kooky as can be.
A statuesque misfit with sunken, tired, delicious, dangerous eyes, sparkling with misery amongst demented friends.
Awesomely clean with a sculptor’s hands, begging to mold instead of scrounging for crumbs.
Oh! That voice! That slid into my head as she begged for COINS, so fruity, so sotto voce, so alien.
And this one memory surpasses them all: That day she dangled and flipped that knife, an expert in motion ready to carve up a slice.
As I watched in fascination from afar, a husky voice rasped, “She was a FINE SURGEON, you know… that’s right…
Betrayed by her soulmate, forgotten vows… So she gave up the fight.”
And I wonder as I pass her empty cot, I pray she was diagnosed with Imposter Syndrome, spirited away from these alien streets, fed some meds that cut her free.
Then I wouldn’t be so gaga with regret, act so bonkers about the man who caused her mental death, and thoughts of her stolen life and talent flushed down the tubes wouldn’t haunt my waking breath.
Julette Prayogg, 12/12/2020