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Room for one?

 

I see them stare at my twisted form;

My withered arm and useless leg.

I'm not blind.

I hear her curse and protest as she moves her pram.

'Why does he have to get on this bus?'

I turn away.

'Why should I have to move?'

'People like that shouldn't be out.'

With that I agree, only it's her I mean,

Not me.

She gets off at the next stop, but there is no respite.

As one mother goes, another gets on.

Pushing her buggy into the gap;

Tight against my chair.

She smiles,

Then looks away as the bus bumps off from the kerb.

The first I know is her voice:

'You'll have to stop there.'

'There's a wheelchair here.'

Is that all I am?

Another pram, this time it has to stay in the aisle.

Blocking it;

But to them it is me that is in the way.

'He shouldn't have let another buggy on.'

'Not with a wheelchair already here.'

True words, but why do I feel they are aimed at me?

I want to get off.

The bell is pushed for me, and the driver yelled at:

'Its the wheelchair, he needs the wheelchair ramp!'

Funny how it’s the 'wheelchair ramp',

But they act as though this space is for 'buggies'?

Prams are manoeuvred aside as foreign hands grab my chair.

I can move myself.

I sit on the path by the bus stop.

Was it my idea to get off?

I don't know.

Still there should be another bus along,

Soon.

 

 

© Kev the Cosmic Fool  2004

 

Dedicated to those less able who put up with so much

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