<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?><oembed><version><![CDATA[1.0]]></version><provider_name><![CDATA[Ballastexistenz]]></provider_name><provider_url><![CDATA[https://ballastexistenz.wordpress.com]]></provider_url><author_name><![CDATA[Mel Baggs]]></author_name><author_url><![CDATA[https://ballastexistenz.wordpress.com/author/ameliabaggs/]]></author_url><title><![CDATA[When we died, we found each&nbsp;other.]]></title><type><![CDATA[link]]></type><html><![CDATA[<p>I was there<br />
I was there and I felt<br />
Your hands around my neck<br />
Hands on my chest pushing me underwater<br />
Tying me into the car and starting the gas<br />
The hot poker<br />
The bullet<br />
The knife<br />
I was there and I felt<br />
Where is the air<br />
Why isn’t my body working<br />
Why can’t I get air<br />
That overwhelming hunger for air<br />
And then&#8230;<br />
And then…</p>
<p>But I was there and I felt</p>
<p>The one person I was supposed to trust more than anyone in the world<br />
And she abandoned me and spat my love back in my face</p>
<p>And I was there and I felt</p>
<p>The one person I never trusted<br />
Even though everyone else said she was a saint</p>
<p>And she was a saint because of me<br />
She was a saint for putting up with me<br />
She was a saint…</p>
<p>…because the only person who would spend any time around me<br />
the only kind of person who would ever want to<br />
the only kind of person who could care for a person as<br />
broken<br />
difficult<br />
damaged<br />
destroyed<br />
nonexistent<br />
unfeeling<br />
uncaring<br />
noncommunicative<br />
as me<br />
would be a saint<br />
wouldn’t they?</p>
<p>And since only a saint would take care of me<br />
Then it could only be expected<br />
It could only be expected<br />
That a normal person<br />
Could never handle<br />
The burden<br />
Of a person like me<br />
(and therefore)<br />
That it’s understandable<br />
It’s understandable if<br />
If someone would<br />
Just want<br />
Me to die.</p>
<p>My suffering was over, they said at my funeral<br />
(When I even got a funeral, which was not always)<br />
My mother was sentenced to<br />
Five years<br />
Fourteen years<br />
Twenty years<br />
Of living with me<br />
(Even when she didn’t live with me at all)<br />
She did not need any further prison sentence<br />
For my murder</p>
<p>When I died, I stopped being separate<br />
When I died, we found each other<br />
We found each other<br />
All the murdered disabled children<br />
Cast out of life by those we should have been able to trust<br />
And we held each other<br />
And we became each other<br />
Now we speak with one voice</p>
<p>Understand this first and foremost<br />
No matter what you have heard about us<br />
We loved<br />
We could love<br />
That we could love means<br />
That we felt what you did<br />
We felt it then<br />
We feel it now<br />
We know what evil means<br />
Because we know love</p>
<p>Now understand this:</p>
<p>We were there<br />
We saw<br />
We knew<br />
We understood what you never thought we could</p>
<p>And now we look you in the eye<br />
And in the name of love<br />
In the name of everything holy<br />
In the name of the union we have found<br />
(Which is nothing, nothing, nothing less than the deep universal love that <em>They</em> said we could never feel)</p>
<p>We say<br />
Not<br />
Ever<br />
Again</p>
<p><a href="http://tinyurl.com/BADD2014"><img title="Blogging Against Disablism Day, May 1st 2014" src="https://ballastexistenz.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/42062-bad02.gif" alt="Blogging Against Disablism Day, May 1st 2014" border="0" /></a></p>
]]></html><thumbnail_url><![CDATA[https://ballastexistenz.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/42062-bad02.gif?fit=440%2C330]]></thumbnail_url><thumbnail_width><![CDATA[]]></thumbnail_width><thumbnail_height><![CDATA[]]></thumbnail_height></oembed>