I have lived so long with pain,
It rips and tears at my body,
Sharp and relentless,
I know
It will always be there.
I try to be strong,
I smile as expected,
But inside I'm breaking
Apart.
When you look at me,
All you see
Is the outside,
A shell,
My disability.
I hide the agony
Deep inside,
A body that betrays me,
And it will
Always be there.
But
I am a person just like you,
I laugh and love,
I cry and need,
When I'm cut
I bleed.
I wish it was easy
And wish it would change,
The world still thinks
I'm strange.
Sometimes in darkness,
I want to scream
At tired
Frustration's flame.
And then I want the world to know,
Deep down,
I am the same.
#helenswriting
2
Sunday, 28 April 2013
Thursday, 11 April 2013
Confessions of a Tea Junkie (Poem - 1997)
Went shopping for teabags at midnight,
If I don't have one in the morning,
I don't feel right.
Forgot to buy the ones
I asked you for,
I was tempted to drain the one
Dropped on the floor!
Alright, I did it!
When we went out,
I wanted to know
If there was a kettle about!
After wandering for hours
I'd built up a thirst,
You didn't need to ask,
If it was tea or shops first!
Alright, I did it!
Deprived of my drug,
I thought about using one
Found in the plug!
You know its been ages,
I am scratchy
And short,
Coming between me
And my tea,
Is a version of sport!
I know I'm terrible,
And I know it's tough,
But if I don't get the hot stuff,
I feel really rough!
I know you don't get it,
You can't understand,
Why I'm sitting here,
With shaking hands.
Now we have teabags
After nearly a day,
So Heaven help the person
Who gets in my way!
Slow minutes later,
I'm holding my mug,
Gripping it tightly
Feels like a hug.
Pausing for a moment,
I breathe in the steam,
Those first blissful sips
Feel like a dream.
The result is instant,
Muscles relax,
My body is sealing,
And mending its cracks.
You can forget chocolate,
And forget a kiss,
I'm ashamed to admit
That my paradise,
Is this!'
(Images - 'Google' of course)!
Wednesday, 3 April 2013
'Prove It!' - Thousands of People Finally Wake Up to Challenge Duncan Smith
A petition urging Iain Duncan
Smith to prove his smug comment that he could live on just £53 per week
has become one of the fasted ever growing petitions. At the time of this
blog it has seen over 300,000 signatures.
Such was the strength of feeling against Iain Duncan Smith’s comments, the petition took off like a rocket, and the signatures are still rising. I am not surprised.
On the ‘Today’ programme, prior to the creation of the petition, Mr Duncan Smith was confronted by a working benefit claimant who stated that since his benefits were cut, he now has only £53 a week to live on.
John Humphries then asked the minister the question we all wanted answered, ‘Could you live on £53 a week? By the way, £53 pounds a week works out at about £7.50 each day.
Mr Duncan Smith quickly replied ‘if I had to, I would’. ‘Go on then’ I thought.
Evidently, I wasn’t the only one!
In their thousands people have signed a petition challenging Mr Duncan Smith to put his money where his mouth is, and do just that.
It is the fastest rising petition on ‘Change.org’ to date, and when I proudly signed it yesterday evening, 60,000 people had done it before me.
Do I think he’ll do it? No, I don’t think he’ll have the guts. In fact, as I type this up, I have just discovered that the man himself has dismissed the petition as ‘a stunt!’ – He wishes! We are deadly serious actually. There is no ‘stunt’ about it!
I guess doing something like that wouldn’t really teach him anything anyway. It’s a bit different when you know you can go back to your millions at the end of it, but I’d still like to see him try!
In case you are wondering, Mr Duncan Smith earns £1,581.02 a week, which equals £225 a day after tax, and his wife Betsy is from a multi millionaire aristocratic family.
I doubt Mr Duncan Smith, and most other cabinet ministers, could even understand the concept of budgeting with such small amounts of money, never mind the anxiety and hardship caused by wondering how you will feed your family – and pay for everything else as well.
If he did understand he wouldn’t have said it, and he definitely wouldn’t expect anyone to do it! It doesn’t take a maths genius to work that out. Despite what the minister says it isn’t really possible – not without a great deal of struggle anyway.
We know that food costs have gone up, heating, petrol – the entire cost of living. In fact even on the barest essentials, it is nigh on impossible. Where is the ability to have any sort of life?
Now we come to what I think is the crux of the problem.
The idea that a bunch of elitist, millionaire and multi millionaire ‘career politicians’ are qualified to make decisions which affect ‘everyday’ people. It’s ridiculous!
I doubt many of them have any idea what things actually cost because they’ve never had to worry about it. After all, I read they get a £200 a week allowance for groceries alone.
They live in an entirely different world, where reality, it seems to me, doesn’t gets a look in!
Why are we letting these people make decisions for us?
We need people in parliament who have lived a ‘real’ life, and at least have some idea of what it’s like to struggle, not people who think the poorest and most vulnerable in society are lazy ‘scroungers’ who just need to work harder!
Despite what the government says, the fact is that in an ever expanding number of cases people need benefits to top up their income.
When wages are so low and there aren’t enough jobs (even for those who are able to work) benefits are a necessity, not a luxury – and definitely not a lifestyle choice.
Mr Duncan Smith’s words and the ‘scrounger’ rhetoric surrounding benefit claimants as a whole is harmful, callous, cruel, and based on doctored figures.
Disabled people like me ‘work hard’ to get through the day against limitations and heartbreak no one can imagine.We need benefits to survive. It’s not a choice, and it’s not a choice for those with jobs that still need benefits to top up their income.
Working hard isn’t always possible, and even when it is (as this case proves), it does not always leave you with enough money to pay the bills.
Personally, I’d like to see Mr Duncan Smith live on £53 a week for a year or more, although I know it’s not realistic to think that he will.
He should be put in a situation where relying on his money and privileges is simply not possible. I think it is the only way he will truly understand the ridiculousness of his words.
If one good thing has come out of this situation over the last couple of days though, is that it has woken up the anger of a growing number of people. People who have finally come to realise that there is no ‘skiver’ vs ‘striver', only the rich vs everyone else.
Campaigners have tried for well over a year to make people realise how out of touch, unthinking and cruel this government are to the most vulnerable in society.
What’s more it comes from Iain Duncan Smith’s own words. If you ask me, he clearly has no clue! I am hoping that comments such as his will prompt people to look deeper into what’s really going on under their noses.
Thank you Mr Duncan Smith for motivating people and making them challenge you, when we struggled to do so.
Long may it continue!
Such was the strength of feeling against Iain Duncan Smith’s comments, the petition took off like a rocket, and the signatures are still rising. I am not surprised.
On the ‘Today’ programme, prior to the creation of the petition, Mr Duncan Smith was confronted by a working benefit claimant who stated that since his benefits were cut, he now has only £53 a week to live on.
John Humphries then asked the minister the question we all wanted answered, ‘Could you live on £53 a week? By the way, £53 pounds a week works out at about £7.50 each day.
Mr Duncan Smith quickly replied ‘if I had to, I would’. ‘Go on then’ I thought.
Evidently, I wasn’t the only one!
In their thousands people have signed a petition challenging Mr Duncan Smith to put his money where his mouth is, and do just that.
It is the fastest rising petition on ‘Change.org’ to date, and when I proudly signed it yesterday evening, 60,000 people had done it before me.
Do I think he’ll do it? No, I don’t think he’ll have the guts. In fact, as I type this up, I have just discovered that the man himself has dismissed the petition as ‘a stunt!’ – He wishes! We are deadly serious actually. There is no ‘stunt’ about it!
I guess doing something like that wouldn’t really teach him anything anyway. It’s a bit different when you know you can go back to your millions at the end of it, but I’d still like to see him try!
In case you are wondering, Mr Duncan Smith earns £1,581.02 a week, which equals £225 a day after tax, and his wife Betsy is from a multi millionaire aristocratic family.
I doubt Mr Duncan Smith, and most other cabinet ministers, could even understand the concept of budgeting with such small amounts of money, never mind the anxiety and hardship caused by wondering how you will feed your family – and pay for everything else as well.
If he did understand he wouldn’t have said it, and he definitely wouldn’t expect anyone to do it! It doesn’t take a maths genius to work that out. Despite what the minister says it isn’t really possible – not without a great deal of struggle anyway.
We know that food costs have gone up, heating, petrol – the entire cost of living. In fact even on the barest essentials, it is nigh on impossible. Where is the ability to have any sort of life?
Now we come to what I think is the crux of the problem.
The idea that a bunch of elitist, millionaire and multi millionaire ‘career politicians’ are qualified to make decisions which affect ‘everyday’ people. It’s ridiculous!
I doubt many of them have any idea what things actually cost because they’ve never had to worry about it. After all, I read they get a £200 a week allowance for groceries alone.
They live in an entirely different world, where reality, it seems to me, doesn’t gets a look in!
Why are we letting these people make decisions for us?
We need people in parliament who have lived a ‘real’ life, and at least have some idea of what it’s like to struggle, not people who think the poorest and most vulnerable in society are lazy ‘scroungers’ who just need to work harder!
Despite what the government says, the fact is that in an ever expanding number of cases people need benefits to top up their income.
When wages are so low and there aren’t enough jobs (even for those who are able to work) benefits are a necessity, not a luxury – and definitely not a lifestyle choice.
Mr Duncan Smith’s words and the ‘scrounger’ rhetoric surrounding benefit claimants as a whole is harmful, callous, cruel, and based on doctored figures.
Disabled people like me ‘work hard’ to get through the day against limitations and heartbreak no one can imagine.We need benefits to survive. It’s not a choice, and it’s not a choice for those with jobs that still need benefits to top up their income.
Working hard isn’t always possible, and even when it is (as this case proves), it does not always leave you with enough money to pay the bills.
Personally, I’d like to see Mr Duncan Smith live on £53 a week for a year or more, although I know it’s not realistic to think that he will.
He should be put in a situation where relying on his money and privileges is simply not possible. I think it is the only way he will truly understand the ridiculousness of his words.
If one good thing has come out of this situation over the last couple of days though, is that it has woken up the anger of a growing number of people. People who have finally come to realise that there is no ‘skiver’ vs ‘striver', only the rich vs everyone else.
Campaigners have tried for well over a year to make people realise how out of touch, unthinking and cruel this government are to the most vulnerable in society.
What’s more it comes from Iain Duncan Smith’s own words. If you ask me, he clearly has no clue! I am hoping that comments such as his will prompt people to look deeper into what’s really going on under their noses.
Thank you Mr Duncan Smith for motivating people and making them challenge you, when we struggled to do so.
Long may it continue!
Sunday, 24 March 2013
The 'Somerset Guardian' Gives Me Space to Tell the Truth - Again.
'The Somerset Guardian' (our local paper) allows me space to tell the truth - again.
I sent my 'Paralympic Legacy' article (which you can find in an earlier post on this blog), to the 'letters' page, after it was initially rejected by the editor.
It was a nice surprise for me, a week later, to find it on page 11.The 'death stats' which came from the DWP itself (via Freedom of Information request) had been removed, but other than that, it was pretty much as I'd written it.
I felt very happy to have been given another chance to get our message out. I will take any I can get.
You'll find a link to the article below:
http://www.thisissomerset.co.uk/Disabled-people-need-real-Paralympic-legacy/story-18413296-detail/story.html#axzz2NWe8KvSK
Sunday, 24 February 2013
Is The Coalition Guilty of Human Rights Abuses Against The Poor? (By Gina Ravens and Helen Sims).
Olivier De Schutter is the UN’ s rapporteur on the right to food. The UK is the 7th wealthiest country in the world. If all in the garden was lovely, their paths might never cross.
However, Dr Schutter is applying some interest in what is happening here, – the connection between the proliferation of food banks, and the growth of child poverty.
The Children’s charity Bernardo’s has stated that 3.6 million children in the UK are living in poverty. That’s almost a third of all children in the UK. Furthermore, 1.6 million of those children are said to live in severe poverty.
Bernardo’s also reveals that 58 percent of child poverty occurs in a household where someone is employed. We don’t think this will be news to Oliver De Schutter!
He moves on to state that a country as wealthy as ours should not be relying on food banks to salve their conscience.
We think he has discovered something we already know here – our Coalition Government has no conscience!
Mr De Schutter further states that the people in this country have a human right to food, and that the indicators he is observing show that this Government are using Austerity measures to set a level of pay that is too low, and that plainly, this contravenes the human rights of people in this country.
Our level of social poverty, (when examined in conjunction with the level of employment), and the fact that so many now only able to achieve part-time employment at that, are commensurate with a Government whose policies have hugely unequal effects upon society.
The knock on effect is that many who survive this Government will be suffering a backlash of health problems that will further engulf our economy in about 15 to 20 years time.
Cameron has said that benefits are at a level that nobody should be hungry with, and we are supposed to believe that food banks are only there to ‘top people up’ with some extras if they are feeling a bit peckish?
The Government have invited De Schutter here to see for himself. We can imagine the ‘snow job’ they would want to set up for him, though it seems he is something of a smart cookie who knows his job.
We can see him being steered away from areas where deprivation shows. I also believe the invitation is about their wanting any kind of inspection to take place before the bedroom tax comes into force in April, and not after.
If that is not the case, the timing of this invitation certainly seems very convenient!
We believe the entire austerity package is about the Tory agenda for enriching the wealthy at the cost of the poor, disabled and the poor are as surplus to requirements. The ‘Survival of the Fittest’ definitely seems to be in place.
Those that are not fit, need support and cannot contribute to our struggling economy have been vilified, victimised and effectively cast aside by government – and seemingly my society itself. It’s a sad state of affairs for a supposedly enlightened, compassionate, first world country.
We cannot see this Government being deterred by the accusation of a few human rights abuses. After all, they have waved such things off before, without their consciences bothering them.
Above all else, they are approaching 2015 with an air of finality about their dubious accomplishments. The rich will be richer, everything that can be sold, will be sold, and oh, how their pockets and bank balances will jingle happily!
The economy will have been so tanked that it will scarcely be possible to nationalise anything without it creating an economic imbalance, and the poor and disabled will be dead, dying, or living on a pittance.
The only thing that could possibly prevent this from occurring would be human rights challenges from Europe.
Inviting an inspection is their way of saying “We have nothing to hide”, a bluff we sincerely hope they get called on.
If it should come to greater challenges or examination, we could see this Government breaking away from Europe in an attempt to escape accountability from the EU.
Their actions would suggest that they are not concerned by the results of their policies upon the poorest.
Are we really “all in this together”, as the mantra coming from the coalition claims? As De Schutter observes, the poor and the children should not be in this at all.
For a superb guide to stock Government phrases and methods of twisting the truth, please see:
http://kittysjones.wordpress.com/2013/02/19/the-blame-game/
A large number of people will be watching with great interest where these statements from Mr Schutter lead,
and those on the front-line of tackling poverty in the UK will be praying for action to force the government to think again about some of its policies.
Friday, 22 February 2013
Monday, 4 February 2013
The Price of Fame - Dedicated to the Memory of Karen Carpenter.
The sweetest voice,
The private pain,
Her eyes said it all
The price of fame.
Her body screamed,
She yearned to be thin,
A manifestation
Of torture within.
Singing songs
Of hearts broken,
In beautiful tune,
Her words were spoken.
Stage lights shone
From up above,
See the fragile figure,
Who longed to be loved.
The public smile,
The private scream,
Her desperate struggle,
To live the dream.
On that last day,
Her heart attacked,
The agony revealed,
The mirror cracked.
The sweetest voice,
The private pain,
Her death said it all,
The price of fame.
The private pain,
Her eyes said it all
The price of fame.
Her body screamed,
She yearned to be thin,
A manifestation
Of torture within.
Singing songs
Of hearts broken,
In beautiful tune,
Her words were spoken.
Stage lights shone
From up above,
See the fragile figure,
Who longed to be loved.
The public smile,
The private scream,
Her desperate struggle,
To live the dream.
On that last day,
Her heart attacked,
The agony revealed,
The mirror cracked.
The sweetest voice,
The private pain,
Her death said it all,
The price of fame.
Dedicated to Karen Carpenter 1950-1983
#helenswriting
Images: Google.
#helenswriting
Images: Google.
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