I was over the moon to be asked to write and deliver a speech for a “Jeremy Corbyn People-Powered Mass Meeting this Thursday. My subject was to be mental health and the poor social care my parents are receiving. I composed a very personal and emotionally charged poem to deliver. I spent days writing it and have since been learning to deliver it by heart to ensure I can perform it with the necessary emotion. It is a really painful poem to stand up and deliver in a room full of strangers but I feel so passionately about this that I was willing to face that fear. The creative process of writing this poem has brought much pain to the surface in my head and it has triggered a darkness I had thought was under control. But it’s there written large in my words, still wounding me and very raw.
Last night I was told that I cannot read out my poem. It’s not the kind of thing that the Labour Party can allow Jeremy Corbyn to sit and hear for fear that the press or media twists it into something negative. Negative!?! This poem is my life. This poem is my truth. And the meeting was a closed event.
I am naturally very hurt and upset. They said I could still attend and deliver a speech but not this poem or I could deliver an edited version of this poem. I cannot do that. I believed in the Labour Party and their hope of a better future for all. Last night I realised that I was deluded in that belief. I feel bereft and heartbroken. I have placed so much faith in Labour to deliver real change. I am now left knowing that politics will never be able to fix the lives of so many because they fear the media and the spin the media threatens. I’m not saying Jeremy Corbyn said no to me but the clunking machinery that surrounds him did and that hurts. I am a writer and they are censoring my life experience. I saw such hope in Jeremy that I and a video The Sound of Corbyn and blogged about how Hastings needs him. I emailed Charlotte the co-ordinator and said I was hurt and emotionally distressed and she didn’t even email me back! RUDE!
Being silenced and not heard has been one of the biggest triggers of my mental health throughout my life. I have been trying to explain that here in my blogs. Trying to battle through getting up each day and feeling wounded is hard. But I always feel better after posting a blog as it allows me to get shit off my chest. I did amuse myself with the idea that I’d written something so controversial and strong that it was banned. I was finally becoming a powerful writer but not if it means nobody get to hear my words. I told myself this to soften the blow as I am wounded that my passionately created poem has been banned. I am being censored from delivering ‘words’ in the 21st Century by the Labour Party. Is this the 1930s? Censorship of Tumblr has just happened too and that is wrong. Freedom of speech people. These thoughts have been spinning in my head all night and considering I was asked to talk about mental health this silencing of my story hasn’t exactly helped my state of mind. I have been awake all night and I feel like I want to stab my eyes out to stop the tears flowing.
I will however dust myself down again after I have posted this and get on with the day. I will continue to write as I know that I have found my vocation in writing. It would just be wonderful once to have some recognition for my creativity rather than being silenced though and I will not be silenced by anyone now.
The Rusty Penn is truly mightier than the sword.
So here is my dangerous poem that cannot be delivered in front of Jeremy Corbyn.
The Sound of Depression
Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggghhh!
This is the sound I always dread
Yet this is the sound that’s in my head
This is the sound of my depression
This is the sound of social repression.
When will you step out the way?
You’re killing people Mrs. May
You lie so much you say we’re broke
But you get rich you’re such a joke
The media sits and shits behind you
Food banks, Windrush you’re not blind you
Keep on stealing all resources
Lying that it’s market forces
A Tory party judgement day
Is on it’s way Theresa May
I had a life I had a job
I had a house I had two dogs
I used to teach celebs to sing
Their dirty secret that’s the thing
They couldn’t say they needed me
To help them sell their songs you see
When they were asked about their voice
They never made an honest choice
Their shameful guilt got in my head
And made me wish that I were dead.
Listen up people, I have this belief
That our NHS should still fix teeth
I was a passenger caught in a crash
And sideways whiplash made my teeth smash
They bashed together and now they’re lost
I can’t repair them because of the cost
Without a full smile I can’t do my work
With out all my teeth I’m feeling berserk
I can’t earn a living I can’t hardly chew
It’s Tory austerity making me blue
Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggghhh!
This is the sound I always dread
Yet this is the sound that’s in my head
This is the sound of my depression
This is the sound of social repression.
I need to explain, there’s more I must mention
My father is ill and my mum has dementia
Yet nobody thought to explain to my dad
How to cope with my mum and it makes me so mad
The trees by her window they’re freaking her out
When scared she gets violent and then my dad shouts
He can’t keep her safe and she flees from their flat
The police have to find her and go fetch her back
What a waste of resources that’s dumb social care
There’s plenty of cash, let the poor have their share
There’s mould in their flat and it’s nasty and black
But the housing authority loves a good crack
They’re playing a game with my parents’ health
By telling them they have to clean it themselves
The building is damp and the structure is broken
But they think it’s funny my father is choking
My mum left the gas on, it nearly went bang
Housing authority don’t give a damn
All for the minimal cost of a plug
They talk to my father like some sort of mug
Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggghhh!
This is the sound I always dread
Yet this is the sound that’s in my head
This is the sound of my depression
This is the sound of social repression .
Yeah I suffer with a mental condition
Wealth for all, redistribution
When the banking sector’s credit panned
They came to us their cap in hand
Let’s be clear that that position
Is what I call Socialism
But here in “Great” Britain the working poor
Pay contributions but get no more
This government’s bleeding everyone dry
And nobody anywhere’s asking why
But I’m asking right here right now
Change the record
Change the Government
Change the countryFor the many not the few
And my Sound of Depression is too scary for Labour.
