So Much Better When Poem by Paula Puddephatt

What if I cannot find a place for me?
To be a burden: Why would I want that?
If I let go, that's no-one's victory.
I just feel desperate: That's where I am at.
It's hard for anyone to understand.
It's not as if I truly would have planned

to chuck my life away - be childless -
with no career, either. No prospects.
Each aspect of my life is in a mess.
The psychiatric system just protects
the ones 'they' see as valuable - of use.
I'm battered by a lifetime of abuse.

This is how it seems on my darkest days.
I pray and meditate. A sense of peace
returns to me once more, but never stays.
I wish that I could steam-iron every crease
inside my mind. I might feel better then -
or maybe I'll feel so much better when...