A Storm Within Poem by Elizabeth Jacqueline Mpanga

They call me crazy, unstable
a shadow society will not embrace.
Some whisper "madness, "
doctors write "mania."
I call it a burden I never asked to carry.

It is the slow unravelling of self,
the helpless watching of your own hands slip free.
You see the tide rising
you want to resist, yet cannot.
At times, I feel blind to it,
but the world never fails to see.

It mars my name, dismantles my days,
brands me unfit, unbearable.
Sadness comes like a herald,
foretelling the long descent
a depression that silences breath,
and lays waste to hope.

In its grasp I am hollowed out,
a vessel filled with worthlessness,
my soul crumpling beneath the weight
of an invisible stone.

And yet
as if dawn itself remembers me
the storm breaks, the air clears.
I rise lighter, as though returned
to myself.
Alive again, with a fragile flame
and the whisper of purpose renewed.

Still, mine is a solitary pilgrimage.
Only the few who love without fear remain.
Most turn away at the first crack of thunder,
their footsteps fading.

And I
I am afraid too.
Afraid of the silence,
afraid of the leaving,
afraid of the nights that decide for me.

This is not the life I chose.
It is the storm that chose me.
And so I learn to weather it,
to call it by name,
and to keep walking
beneath the shifting sky.