This is a true story about a girl I knew for just a little while. It’s a genuine tragedy. She wasn’t like the rest. It also forms a kind of rant against a system that not only let down this particular girl but many others as well. Hope you like it, or are moved by it even if its too sad to enjoy.

Young, slim, pretty

Shiny black hair

In satin waves

Freshness of youth

Delicate features

Fragile like the mayfly

A shy nervous smile

Flickers briefly

She looks much like the rest

And she walks and talks

Just like the rest

She tells me her story

Reads me her poems

Glimpses a future

Inside she struggles

Stresses and worries

Insecurity, plagues her like locusts

Eating confidence, consuming spirit

An empty bottle, beached

On life’s shore

Forgotten, a lonely, abandoned lamb

To face her wolves

And she hurts

“What about me?”

“What about me?”

“How should I feel? I don’t matter”

Not like the rest

Doctors diagnose, plan intervention

Prescribe medication, a hospital bed

Nurses monitor and report

Administer the treatment

Provide some care

Nobody really listens

Nobody really knows

Or understands

So she remains

Hospitalised, medicated

Pacified, stabilised

Tranquilised, desensitised

Monitored, protected

Contained, controlled

How does she feel?

She can’t explain

Then how could she

Doped and drugged

Her feelings blanked

Smothered and flattened

And they

Can’t explain

Then how could they?

She doesn’t look ill

She carries no mark

She wears no badge

They say she’s recovered

Finished her treatment

She’s not so sure

They send her home

Parents plead

A mother knows

She’s not ready

She’s still hurting

She still needs help

Her bed’s allocated

Her budget’s spent

Her resources gone

Released, discharged

Just like the rest

Her care in the community

Her one brief day

Of freedom

They came too soon

Unwittingly created

A torment too far

On a bridge

She pauses

No samaritans

No witness

No mothers arms

She’s gone

A solitary column inch

She didn’t matter

Not like the rest