Shush! No One Should Know!

(The story of a paranoid Schizophrenic)

Intelligent and Lively

Adventurous and keen

I was all healthy

till I reached seventeen

Loved to go on strolls

 in gardens and meadows

Before I started being trailed

 by dark creepy shadows

Voices and Whispers

Shadows and delusions

What's real and what's not?

There's a hell of confusions

Turn down the curtains!

dear sister, he's here!

Or he'll find you and kill you

with a spear

I love them! I warn them!

Their lives are in peril!

They just conclude I've been

possessed by the devil

Friends all left -

couldn't bear what I say

For in my world, there's nothing but

fright and dismay

“You spineless freak,” said they,

“be a man!

Your sheepish claims

make you sound like your gran.”

My parents keep me indoors

out of fear of disrespect

For all myths and superstitions

emerge out in this subject

The neighbors have spread

that the boy is cursed

Don't talk to him ever!

if you don't want your worst

"A madman lives here,"

to the children they say,

“He'll bewitch you and kill you

if you don't stay away”

At my frightened cries

on seeing a hissing snake

They back away, screaming,

“The demon's awake!”

I throw stuff at the ghost

peeping through the pane

People run yelling:

“He's violent again!”

The doctor is experienced 

To him, I could go

Fearing disgrace, father says:

“Shush! No one should know”

Then one day comes grandma

with a short, aged guy

She says this exorcist

will make the demon die

He chains me up tightly

To a melon tree

Hits me with a burning stick

yelling: “Demon! Flee!”

The fire burns my skin

With every hit I scream

But the exorcist just intensifies

his hits to extreme

Then claims with triumph,

“The demon's no more here!"

With a shattered body and a burnt soul

I see him go with a sneer

I’m left disabled and lifeless-

harmless to all

All praise the fake exorcist

for killing my soul

Neither he nor I

 nor my fellows are to blame

The whole society is 

to bear this shame

They hate us, they fear us,

They make up the tales

Illness eats our inside

and our outside- their assails

On TV, I see,

in many of the thrillers

The mentally ill

are the serial killers

The monsters of my hallucinations

               are deadly, They kill!          

But people of the real world

are deadlier still

You’ve learnt about a victim’s suffering

Now Quickly you should go

And never dare to blurt it out

Shush! no one should know!

- Maryam Ejaz (Class of 2020)

---