Inspiring

 Inspiring 

They mean:
thank God it’s not me.
They mean:
look how you smiled through it — I’d have crumbled.
They mean:
your life frightens me,
so let me drape it in soft gold words
I can walk away from.

They see your wheelchair,
your tic, your slurred word,
your stillness or flinch
and call it brave,
as if your body were a war
you chose to fight in.

They say inspiring
when you open a door,
buy milk, laugh in the cinema,
breathe
without asking them first.

They do not mean inspiring.
They mean:
I am uncomfortable,
but I’ve been taught to smile at difference
if it tries hard enough to be palatable.

They mean:
stay exceptional.
Stay quiet about the cuts,
the pain,
the rage,
the small cruelties
we never have to notice.

They mean:
please let me feel kind
without doing anything kind.

But you —
you wake up.
You put on your shoes.
You speak.
You spill coffee.
You kiss someone who loves you.
You live.

And none of that is for them.