'Crime: Being Me 25/10/2009 Poem by Margaret Alice

Made a grave mistake, tried to live like
an ordinary person, found all experience
lack durability, everything is temporary,
unsatisfactory, disillusionment is lived
by all people, I cannot breathe in their
universe, cannot live in a world consti-
tuted by sense experience, cannot
exist in perpetual pain

The only place I can breathe is in dreams,
Lewis Carrol’s Wonderland and James
Bond’s magical universe - their fantastic
experiences let me feel what happiness
is, I find refuge in a dream-world of soul-
mates, depicted in Universal Sufism, but
their ideal of universal peace would
bore mankind to death

Terry Pratchett writes brilliant descriptions
of self-created reality which make me cry
in despair, searching fulfillment through
sensual gratification is a nightmare, the
chronic pain in my head destroys all
beauty and dreams, now I have
found dreamland again, I will
not let go of it

Only dreams and visions can sustain me,
when I try to survive in reality I am rejected
and punished for being original, being unique
in a world made of uniform rules is a heinous
crime, I am guilty and go underground to hide
the accusations and pain from myself, I split
into different people who take turns
to face reality

While the real me lives an enchanted life in the
visions created by mystics and spiritualists,
without this device I would die of
humiliation and shame for the
crime of being me