A Voice of Pain and Injustice

Here is a very poignant poem written by a pain sufferer for over ten years. She was forced to undergo a reduced dose of pain medication and wrote this poem about the increase in pain that she was experiencing. I think it is important to use all means we have at communicating the dreadful impact of this invisible disease:

Oh, I Want to Live..... (A Poem by Anonymous)


Oh, 
I want to live… 
Please stand with me 
Please help me
Please help me win the civil right
To have the choice
To stop the agony
To be of stable mind 
To secure the means
Of reason
To not be pushed 
Into no choice at all
To not be forced
To raise my hands against myself
To dwell 
In mind blinding agony 
Is to not be 
In my right mind
All thought is pressed
To stop the agony
To be forced to live in agony is
To live in hell on earth
To not see an end 
To the blinding agony
To not have the freedom
The civil right
To love
To learn
To grow 
To move foreword
And live
This is death 
To be abandoned
To ultimately 
Be sentenced
To exist in blindness
The Hopeless Madness
Of a living torture
Where choice is stripped from you
And death is not
The thing feared anymore
A life turned to
Stupid empty agony
Every coming tormented moment
Is seeking an end to the consuming agony
To make this horrible torment STOP STOP STOP STOP 
The leading cause of death
For the chronic pain sufferer
Is suicide
I do not want to die
Please
Together we can win
A better choice
To rescue 
The ones tortured
In chronic intractable pain
I do not want to die
I want to live
To love
To learn
To grow
To move forward
To life
Please 
We must stand together
To make them see
That we are many
And many love us
And we will not
Just slip away
Into the darkness
To suffer in dumb agony
Where there is only death 
To comfort our tortured bodies and minds
Help is available
We as American citizens
Do not deserve
To suffer to death
While those with power
To stop our suffering
Deny us this choice
And pass false judgments
To guard their precious prize
Their precious millions
They’re precious billions
They cheer 
They celebrate together
That they denied us
That which was created for us
The means to stop our senseless suffering
And set us free from the pain 
They are happy that we are dying
Because they saved their precious profits
Because in their twisted minds
They believe that 
We do not matter
But we are here
To let them know
That we will not just go away
That we demand a change
We demand the choice 
The right we have 
Under God
As Americans
To Be Free
Of Pain
And Live 
With the means 
That sets the pain behind us
And frees our minds
And frees our bodies
We Want To Live