The winning SLYP poem ” Is it Loneliness or are you just alone ?” by Megan Champion.

Is it loneliness, or are you just alone?
When the most company you have, is when you’re on your own.
It’s no fault of the people in your life, you conceal it very well.
You’ve never fitted in, but people cannot tell.
But why don’t you tell the people you love, about this darkness within?
About the echo inside your heart, the pain beneath your skin.
Because of the burden you would be passing and the fear you’ll be neglected,
Which just emphasises that feeling, of being disconnected.
So how do you cope? Is it positive thoughts and hope?
That one day things will change and you’ll suddenly be accepted,
And the dark profound feelings inside will change and so will your perspective.
I am still waiting patiently in line, but 26 years of waiting, you start to lose hope,
So naturally you build mechanisms, just so you can cope.
We all wear that mask, to hide those deep routes behind,
To fool the audience with a smile and hide what’s in your mind.
The mask is like a robot, its programmed how to act,
Your eyes say you’re listening, but really you’re detached.
You’re standing right beside someone, in ‘deep conversation’,
But behind the mask a million miles away, deep in contemplation.
Do you take the mask off and just endure the risk, just let the echo out?
Or would it push you so deep down, that you might not get out.
The feeling isn’t just being sad because my friend didn’t phone me,
It’s being in a room full of friends and feeling f****** lonely.
It’s having a mask, that annotates sunshine and warmth,
When behind the mask and in the depths, is a dark and cloudy storm.
I feel deep intense emotions, I feel I’m an absorber.
Is it me, or is it my attention deficit disorder?
My ADHD, which could explain the feeling of intense emotions,
But the mask hides the constant feeling of complete internal explosion.
Never feeling good enough, a constant ‘you don’t love me’.
But if your brain is wired like mine, you’ll inevitably feel lonely.
Lisdexamphetamine, to help with concentrating,
But you can’t prescribe a life jacket, for when I’m suffocating.
Am I lonely, or am I just alone? Or is society breeding divisions.
Where you have to be a certain way unless subject to provision.
In a world where, if you want help you have to either pay or protest,
Then spend 3 years on a waiting list for ‘someone who knows best’.
I will always be an outcast, because I have a different wired brain,
But as an empath, I feel intense emotions and other people’s pain.
But growth within a flower, needs the sunshine AND the rain,
So I’m taking off the mask, so I can grow again.
I’m letting in the sunshine and climbing out my shadow, for all I see is black.
I might still feel lonely, but I’m okay with that.

Congratulations Megan !!!

Thank you to all the young people who participated in the competition.