What happens to many people with an illness like me?
Why they are as miserable as can be
Some are sitting on a street corner talking to themselves
Homeless with a box to keep out the rain
Pulling lice out of their hair
Looking at everyone but no one with a blank stare
When the soup kitchen is open they eat
When they collect enough in their beggar’s cup they sleep
Others sit in the jail cell
Often with no drugs to keep the voices at bay
The price for the drugs
Is too much for the prison system to pay
Others are sitting at the bar
Drinking their troubles away
Trying to deal with their voices with whiskey
Or whatever they can shoot up or sniff
Most of them smoke the day away
Spending what little money they have on nicotine
Many are stuck where they are
And have seen little more than the street, the jail or the bar
I’m one of the lucky ones
Even after my illness began
My life did not end
I watched Michael Jordan play
live in Atlanta’s stadium dome
I climbed Kennesaw Mountain
Where many unlucky soldiers died
I laughed in a comedy club
And toured Washington DC
All because my family was able to take me
They still love me some how
Even after all the heck I put them through
I am a lucky man through and through
I guess you could say that the story is not complete
Without detailing the many ways I am replete
I can’t drive and never could
I’ve had no wife or children of my own
I’ve been hospitalized over a half dozen times
And 4 times in the last 7 months
And hallucinated almost constantly for 23 years
I now am unemployed and live in the poorest part of town
But I can fix my own meals
And pay my own bills
My stomach is full
My fridge and freezer are full as well
And my voices are as quiet as they have ever been
And I have never smoked
All and all I can honestly say
I am one of the lucky ones today
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