anisah

Dissipate

Mental Health Activism & Awareness

They’ll ask me: “what’s wrong?”

with the expectation of hearing “I’m fine”
to which they accept
and move on.
And so do I.
Inside, I’m far from fine;
I cry at everything
not knowing why.
I sleep a maximum of four hours a night.
“I’m fine.”
The offers for help are vacant.
“It’ll be okay” soon becomes
“maybe you’re overthinking things a little?”
You can help me with my maths homework
but you’ll never help me solve
the puzzles in my head.
One plus one doesn’t always equal two
up here.
You can’t help me get rid of the monsters under my bed.
“I’m here if you ever need a shoulder to cry on”-
fucking liar.
That offer is far too soon retracted.
I’m here for you if your boyfriend dumps you
but that’s all I can offer you.
My problems are not as shallow as that.
The depth of my problems compete with the ocean;
what will drown me first?
I guess I’ve learnt over the years
there’s only one hand that will reach down for you
into the abyss,
whilst you’re drowning and gasping for air.
Trying to gasp hold of the last fragments of sanity
as they dissipate between your fingertips.
That hand, my friend
is yours.

“Assisted Dying”, or “Assisted Killing?”

Current Affairs

I’m incredibly disappointed to learn that 330 MPs rejected the idea of allowing a terminally ill patient to end their lives with medical supervision, despite many doctors agreeing to administer the drugs and take part in it.

I understand the cons of the bill; the possibility of vulnerable patients being exploited by their families and pushed to end their lives. That patients may feel the need to end their own life to stop the misery and pain of their loved ones. I get that. However, I am of the opinion that those 330 MPs acted with complete selfishness and possible religious bias.

I am not terminally ill, so I cannot speak for those who are. I also strongly oppose the categorisation of people who qualify for the ‘right to die’ – those who only have 6 months to live. What about everyone else? What about those who have been suffering from constant pain for months and even years on end? What about those with absolutely no quality of life? According to the Guardian, “one in five people who travel to Switzerland for assisted-dying are from the United Kingdom.” Surely the statistics speak for themselves?

I’ve watched and read a fair few interviews with people who suffer from motor neurone disease and their biggest fears were living a life of complete paralysis, wheelchair bound and in pain without the ability to speak coherently and express their distress. For MPs to deny these people that right to me, is a complete failure of morality within the establishment of law-making.

Another obstacle in this debate is the concept of religion. In many religions such as my own, it is forbidden to take one’s own life. Full stop. There are no ifs, no buts; just no. I understand that life is precious and a gift; we only get one and we ought to do all we can to preserve it. But I will never understand the point in living if there’s nothing to live for because an illness or health condition is prohibiting you from doing so, and instead you’re sentenced to a life of pain and misery.

I sincerely hope this isn’t the end of the debate on assisted dying. We ought to give these people a chance to do as they please with their own lives, as they’re the ones living it. Not us. For authoritative figures to simply dismiss this chance in the name of “ethics” is simply incomprehensible and morally unacceptable.

A Summer of Love

Original Writing

I’ll remember that summer as the summer of love. It’s defined by the taste of your coffee-stained lips under a city sunset and falling in love with eyes so deep, floating amidst Venus. I’ll remember that summer by the touch of your fingertips tracing an intoxicating path down my shirt. I’ll remember that summer as the summer I fell in love with the idea of falling for someone as endearing as you.