I Like Me This Way

mindshare was recipient of Arts SA’s Strategic Community Partnership: Community Grant for 2014 working with the Media Resource Centre and Access 2 Arts. As part of this project mindshare invited poets, writers and individuals with lived experience of a mental health issue to submit poetry to a competition called When words come to life.

Our judge Jude Aquilina then selected 8 poems from a diverse range of applicants which were turned into digital stories during a workshop run by the Media Resource Centre.

Telene Clarke was one of the selected poets with her poem ‘I Like Me This Way’, this is her story.

I Like Me This Way…..

My house is messy, that’s what they say

They say I should tidy and put things away

That my clothing is odd and the colours don’t match

That my style is wrong and I’m not a good catch

They tell me it’s wrong to eat muesli for tea

To eat with my family of cats on my knee

That people will stare if I sing on the bus

To stop being ‘me’ and start being an ‘us’

I don’t understand why I can’t pick the flowers

Or gaze at the stars for hours and hours…

And what’s wrong with laughing at things I find funny

Of having no TV and no need for money

What’s wrong with spending my days all alone

Without needing people, computers or phones

Of finding life’s pleasures in things that are small

Like sunshine through leaves and patterns on walls

In singing to plants and communing with birds

Of living a life that is lived beyond words

My life is different, that’s what they say

How can I tell them I like it this way…

by Telene Clarke
Part of the When words come to life competition 2014