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Competition Shortlisted Entry: I Would Like To Live In A Place...

Rotherham Flourish present a brilliant group poem, describing the kind of world they would like to live in.

Competition Shortlisted Entry: I Would Like To Live In A Place...

I’d like to live in a place

where home breathes beyond our walls

A shared garden where seeds are planted by all

I’d like to live in a place with open space, and trees that grow

horizons that widen with potentials of people we come to know,

 

I’d like to live in a place safe and secure with my own space

to laugh and cry, to be low or high, to be me,

I’d like to live in a place where people give a rose

to someone they have never met before,

 

Somewhere people are friendly and stigma isn’t in the community

somewhere to live in harmony,

but there are borders where I am stopped and checked for ‘normality’

I want to find an antidote to this hostility

I would like to start a mission and end this attrition

you want my inclusion? Then I send this to you,

I am not ‘voiceless’–I am articulate–

but do you listen?

 

I’d like to live in a place where people are understanding

and happy to engage, without saying a thing

they show openness at every stage

they are kind and caring and listen to you

where you start sharing and they share too

 

I’d like to live in a place that’s free from a compulsory race

not grabbing a chance, or being forced to dance

to a tune that’s lacking in grace

Yes, I’d like to live in a place where I can move at a much slower pace

so please be still.

 

I want to live in a place where children grow up understanding

that they can talk about the things that worry them

where schools teach the problems of mental health

where they experience compassion

and learn to embrace the difference

where they learn not to be afraid of someone

who is sitting on a park bench crying

I want ‘mental health’ OUT OF THE CUBBOARD

Open the door!

Let it out!

Come with whatever you want,

a cry,

a shout,

with a song!

Let your madness believe in my madness.

 

By: Tom. Terry, Pam, Gene, Juliet, Robert, Julie, and Noushin

Rotherham Flourish group

 

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