Alan & Bingo the Alter-Ego Basset Hound

18275167_1939594819605586_6739737322484250120_n — Artwork by Marion Michell “I crocheted this while lying on my back. It took over a year. It is teenage size. The sleeves are 350 cm long, and I called it: The Limit of My Dreams.”

Someone else is living
their life for me
Someone else is being
all the things that I could be
While my future slowly diminishes
I’d barely started it
now surely finished it
Someone else is living
their life for me

Someone else is doing
the things I would have done
Someone else gets to experience
it all while I’m left with none
Instead of limitless horizons
I’m trapped instead
My cage these walls, this cell my bed
Someone else is doing the things
I long to have done

Someone else gets
to dream my dreams
They don’t feel my frustrations
or hear my scream
They don’t have to know
about my cause
Or suffer the indignities
of a life on pause
That someone else gets
to dream my dreams

Someone else is living
my full and happy life
Someone else has that job,
that home, that wife
All that’s left is a puppet’s speech
Speaking words about what’s so far out of reach
Someone else is enjoying that full and happy life

Someone else is surrounded by friends
Someone else is living a life they hope never ends
My only companion to bring me joy
My ever faithful soft toy
Someone else has people on whom they can depend

But no one else appreciates the world the way we do
No one else sees life’s subtle changes or varied hues
Everything feels bigger, tougher, greater
Have to do things now in case there is no later
No one else has a clue
Of how to live the way we do
Except for me and maybe you
Which makes us all the chosen few
Who can’t be in the world for more than an hour or two
So must be more precise with what we do
When the people outside they don’t have a clue
If only they knew what we all knew
Our lives would be better, theirs brand new
Maybe they’re living – but we are too