Coordinators Highlight
It is because you are strong, dealing with your challenges and working very hard so as to resolve them that these mental challenges have set in. They have set in because our internal strength of resistance has been overpowered. It is therefore alright to approach an expert to talk. Let’s all listen, pay and give attention to those around. Nothing is trivial. It could be the life line into the dead line. Let’s stay alive.
 
 

Poem In Full

Close the door and with it my eyes.
Close the thoughts that make me feel like my life is frozen in ice.
Stop the clock, with its agonizing tic toc.
Stop the talk and saying this is just in my head.
I should just pick myself up and busy myself with my work.
I should not desire so much to be dead.
My tears are real unfortunately, to you surreal.
You say I am too old, too grown to be burnt by these imaginary fires you confidently brush aside as uttered lies.
My fears are real and from them I seem not to heal.
The fires you say are lies burn me every day and every night.
You cannot see or hear when I cry.
I have learnt to hide that from you in case you do that thing you do;  pat me on my back like it should be alright.
Tried as I might I still wanted to dangle from the rope that promised a snuggle.
To turn off my lights for this life should not be this much of a struggle.
You think I am too intelligent, too pretty too blessed and too smart to be in this constant cycle.
I want to hang from a rope and finally embrace the promise of this after life’s hope.
Till I no longer have to pretend that everything is ok and in this life, forgot when I signed up for this cruel joke.
Everybody says it is nothing and they went through this before.
There is nothing God cannot cure.
But everybody is not me and they do not understand how this suffocates me and makes me want to stay glued to the floor.
They say pray to God, go to church or do the Mosque just go through another door.
Like this is something dirty and I should just wash it out as simply as doing the laundry or covering up a sore.
Stop being like this, think of positive and sweet positive things.
Stop being like this.
The world is more beautiful than it seems.
They constantly say things to me, like I wished this is a place I wanted to be in.
They say go to church and stay away from bad, negative thoughts.
Sleep this off, by tomorrow you will be  brand new and tough.
Hang out with friends, they say that should surely shake it off.
 
This message will be uploaded in a short while.
When it is. I will finally have won.
And dying today will be like winning some black Friday super, on the Amazon.
I will be happy.
I will be done.
This everyday struggle and all this misery will eventually be long gone, dusted and done.
They say I am too young to feel this forlorn and helpless so I should run.
They say I am too strong to claim this negative type of unending storm.
So I should run.
But I say this heavy blanket has encompassed me since I was three.
And now I have lost who I am.
They say how did I know? Because I was too young to make decisions, much more even to think at three.
I will write down here.
On this wide internet.
So someone finds my letter
Or this poor attempt at trying to be free.
To know this was no murder.
This was only me.
The circumstances that reminded me I was only weaker.
Only weaker, only weak that is left off me.
So I take my own life and leave you here my glass slipper.
So when you walk.
You remember to press upon my footsteps much deeper.
When you talk.
You remember my voice became silenced.
And when you feel the fire burn like your eyes have been doused with the juices of pepper and ginger.
Then you will know that I too struggled with this demon who in my mental did linger.
This demon who sapped my energies and left me a shell of myself, myself, myself.
They said I should let it go, that it was all in my head, my head, my head.
But when the darkness hit I could not even swallow a piece of bread.
I who was the life of the party will feel so empty, so dead.
My chest, my legs, my broken resolve.
They say I should practice pretending this thing one day will end.
But….
They will see this letter uploaded on the internet.
Then by the time they finished reading.
I will already be de…
For the only energy I had, was to hang from a thre…

By Ziiarly
Graphic Artist and Creative Director
The Rheumatology Initiative.(tRi)