Inclusion
Ice
Changes

Inclusion

I don’t want to be included in a society that drops bombs
on a poor defenceless people.

I don’t want to be included in a society that lets its pensioners die
of malnutrition and cold.

I don’t want to be included in a society where you have to deny your past
and the firm friends you made in mental hospital, in order to survive.

I don’t want to be included in a society riddled with inequalities.

I don’t want to be included in a society where all that matters
is how much money you have.

I don’t want to be included in a society where, in order to survive,
you have to lie and cheat.

I want to be included in a society where you can talk about
your ideas and feelings, openly and honestly.

I want to be included in a society where a complete stranger
will share their last cigarette with you.

I want to be included in a society where you can laugh and joke about
things that, in the past, you took far too seriously.

I want to be included in a society where friends are always
there when you need them.

I want to be included in a relaxed, friendly, equal and free society.

Oops, sounds like the Service User Movement, maybe I’m already included.

John Exell © 2002

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Ice

It is winter.
In my breast it is winter too.
Icicles live where once beat my heart.

I do not long for spring,
Winter suits me.
Its coldness is bracing, awakening.
It numbs the pain.

Love caused this pain.
I now stand aloof from love,
What need have I for it.

The ice forms patterns on my window.
Beautiful geometric ordered patterns,
A true mathematical beauty.
What need have I for the false beauty of her eyes,
Her lips.

I lay on my bed to sleep.
No more will I lose myself in dreams.
I sleep the sleep of death,
Stillness, ice, ice, death.

Ice is stillness, solid, unyielding.
Frozen water, frozen tears.

John Exell © 2002

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Changes

When I was young, my view of madness was uninformed.
There was the screaming woman,
Locked in her room, in Victorian novels.
There was my Auntie Gladys,
Whom no-one ever talked about except in hushed whispers.
They were distant, removed,
Misunderstood objects of ridicule.
Then I had my illness.
I became as the screaming woman and my Auntie Gladys.
Was my idea of myself
The same as I had of them?
Underneath it all,
I was still the same child playing with my friends;
Yet I was ashamed.
I couldn’t do things like I used to,
People treated me differently,
I had strange thoughts, strange feelings;
But I was still the same person, still the same child.
The screaming woman and my Auntie Gladys
Were still human beings, lost children.
It was a shock, a terrible shock,
To realise that I was the same as these people;
But if I correct my childhood view,
And see them with warmth and understanding,
I will see myself with warmth and understanding.

John Exell © 2002