I Am Only Me

Look at them see how they stare

They don’t know me, why should they care

I’m just a no one sitting here

Sympathy, that’s what I fear

I didn’t ask to be born this way

I wish they’d all just go away

Leave me here to dream and think

I can still eat, I can still drink

They look at me as if I’m dead

A motionless body, a moving head

No feeling in my hands or feet

So into my mind, I do retreat

For in my mind I can walk and run

Dance and play, enormous fun

Then I wake and see the light

Another day will soon be night

Children pass and stare at me

A puppet is what they see

A baby in a chair, no heart or soul

Functioning without control

But if they looked deep inside

A normal person is what they’d find

I smile at them as they pass by

But inside this man, I sit and cry

©sonofdel 2011

This poem was written in 1996 not long after I was diagnosed with HMSN. I didnt really know that much about it at the time, only what I was told by my specialist.  I wondered what my future held and this came to me about how I would feel later in my life.  Just to remind you that they told me I would probably be wheelchair bound when I was 40..........yeah right