Picture of Shubham ShanShubham Shan is a medical student in the Class of 2019 at the University of Toronto

 

 

 

How to read a cleave poem:

  1. Read the left hand poem as a first discrete poem.
  2. Read the right hand poem as a second discrete poem.
  3. Read the whole as a third integrated poem.

 


Today I’m Superman
And I learnt to fly
To Mars and back and
No kryptonite can hold me back
Today I’ll climb the highest peak
And scream my truths
Why aren’t you listening to me?
Do you know that
I don’t need sleep or feel pain anymore?
Look how fast I can move my legs.
It was pitch black until you shone along in
I know this is supposed to be a disease
And I don’t feel sick. I love me now.
Will change your loving whispers to harsh screams
Spilling Words of self-hatred and pure loathing,
But that’s a long time away.
Until then,
I welcome you,
My Mother,
My Messiah,
My Mania.


Fighting a war against myself
In a never ending struggle of trying to get up,
Move, live, breathe and find a purpose.
And I can’t stay in bed all day,
While nursing my amputated soul
Struggling to walk the venomous path to happiness
Do you know that I have scars?
Big interlocking train-tracks mark the number of times
I’ve asphyxiated my pain.
Just look at the criss-crossing pattern on my arms
This dark universe recycling itself
But we are made of stardust and other things
The carbon atoms that once were part of a nebula
Making up the neurotransmitters,
In my short-circuited brain
Sometimes, I wish I could bottle up the rainbow’s colours
I’ll spill it in my heart
I welcome you,
My Demise,
My Darkness,
My Depression.