When they’re being nice, they call me
in crisis, confused, sick.
When they’re being honest, they call me
out of control, delusional, crazy.
Maybe I’m projecting.
But I think I heard them say
psycho, dangerous.
What do I call myself?
Marginalized.

I am sick.
But why does that mean I don’t belong?
Why can’t I be manic and still be a Mawrtyr?

Bryn Mawr celebrates the students that stay up all night studying,
but fears the ones who stay up because they can’t quiet the voices in their mind.
Why?

Why is there no room for me?

I left in the spring.
It happened so fast.
I didn’t want to.
But I couldn’t stay. Their choice, not mine.

Sometimes I wonder: If I didn’t have psychotic symptoms,
would they have let me stay?
Is that why they treated me like a child?
Is that why they took away any autonomy and agency I had left?

I came back in the fall.
Tell me: Why did I have to submit three doctor’s notes to come back?

What could they even have said?
We gave him meds. He’s still a little depressed,
but he knows where he is and where he’s going.
He’ll be nice, and quiet,
go to school when he’s supposed to, and sleep when he’s supposed to.
We’ll keep an eye on him, don’t worry.

In those notes, they don’t mention that I deserve to be at this elitist fucking college even if
I’m unhinged.

They won’t tell you, so I will.
I belong here, with my illness, my delusions,
my messiness, my crazy talk, my confusions.
All of me belongs here.
All of me. And no one can tell me otherwise.