1800Wheelchair.com Scholarship Fund Winning Poem for Spring/Summer 2012
Topic: Please write a poem, in a style of your choose, on the theme of overcoming a personal challenge.
Hannah Yates
Asbury University
Thorn In My Flesh
My legs
Twisted and misshapen
Conforming to a deformity
Overtaking my ability
To run
To walk briskly
To play sports of any kind
My hips
Doctors have been puzzled
No pinpoint to what's wrong with me
Making hard this life's journey
To be
To feel normal
To even sit Indian style
My future
I've cried my share of rivers
Will I be able to bear children?
Unanswered questions flood my mind
Bringing darkness, a lack of clarity
As I grow
I get older and sorer
And I'm only eighteen – shame
My family
Seeing my sorrow, they shape me
Comforting despite deformity
Buying me a handicapped tag for my car
Me, ashamed and rosy-cheeked
Permanent
Disabled citizen
Who am I but a problem?
My hope
That I am not my disability
I am a woman capable of so much
Loving, learning, accomplishing, being
My power comes from something bigger
Better
More important
Than this