Modelling my Disability

By Vikki

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One day my body broke,

An unexpected failing.

Medics looked at me

They didn’t have a clue.

If doctors don’t yet know

Or understand the issues,

It soon resorts to exclusion,

‘You’ are obviously the issue.

So medically they model

Disability as individual.

It is my body that doesn’t work,

Left to manage it, not fix it.

Navigating life differently,

I soon saw the many failings.

No help, no support,

My diagnoses not deserving.

Searching for ideas,

I find new ways

To live my life with aids

And wheels for my mobility.

I’m struck again,

They cost so much,

How do people afford it?

Disability is costly.

So, charitable they model

My disability as handouts.

Begging and pleading I go,

To manage new normality.

Friends, family and strangers,

They really don’t understand.

They think I should be devastated

At the life played in this hand.

I smile and say don’t pity me,

I’ve learnt new ways of being.

Pain, exhaustion and failing body,

I’m me just living differently.

So devastatingly they model

My disability as tragedy.

They cannot see the beauty

In my life lived differently.

I carry on and find new ways

Of living life authentically.

New ways of doing the same old things,

But society excludes me.

I start to feel so isolated,

Desperate to be included.

There must be ways to do this better,

To integrate, not be excluded.

I look around the world I see,

Small changes make huge differences.

Dropped kerbs so I can cross a road,

Wide pavements give easy access.

Companies say ‘but it costs so much,

To make ourselves accessible’.

You can take them to court if you want,

And just argue what is ‘reasonable’.

It’s then I understand,

It’s not me that is the issue.

So I remodel my disability,

Society is the issue!