Tilted Poem by Cherime Sangma

They call me different
Yet I prefer my name
A version of reality apart

Tilted from my axis
What if I'm the one who sees?
Who understands?
That reality has many garbs
And sanity can overdress too

My silence as identity
Subverts paradigmatic truth
As my vision's disregarded

Fire raging roars
Volleys of judgment
Constantly rises and falls
Oozing lava of despair
Of digressed anger

You zone me out
Chastising me
Forcing tags of sanity

I am as you say, ‘special'
Black dot on a white canvas
But I'm spectacular
Prismatic dimension
Of a radiant mind

Everything's in the name
You call it truth not labels
Saying it as it is

What's in a name?
Everything!
Spell my crime as it is
Bipolar, autistic, schizophrenic…
Name it

But it doesn't define me-
I am, as much as you are-
Human.

(for those who have a reality apart from us)