I’m thirty years old preparing for a career, finishing a doctoral degree on scholarship and I don’t think I should have to leave the state or live in a nursing home or leave the state because I need support services. Here is a poem I wrote before I even heard about this contest. I hope it gets through to people.

My Body Has Not Changed
I feel smaller with each passing
cut into what I need to stay alive
and that sounds like such a cliché.
I don’t have to guess at what would happen without help
because I remember and this is one piece of it
If I can’t eat because I cant make
food for myself my days will be filled
up with water like my stomach until
I finally can’t take it and have to buy
made food no matter how sick it makes
or how much it costs me
So I will wait until nightfall to eat for the first
time and “Come on.” my friend will say when I call
delirious with hunger or nausea or both and say
“I’m not sure if its worth all the effort it takes
to keep eating….it so much money and energy.”
“You don’t mean that.” She’ll say.
And I don’t.
I mean I get depressed because the very basic resources
I need to stay alive are
constantly being threatened and sometimes
like this time
taken away I want a decent income
satisfying work
a space for my art
and a worthy partner.
This is not asking a lot.
Perhaps you have similar aspirations.
My disability does not prevent me from having any of these things
A system that constantly devalues my life
and criminalizes my need for support services does.
My body has not changed today
What changed was a law
It is not about what I can and can’t do for myself
but what we as a society will
and will not do for one another.

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