15/01/2025
Kwanda Matiwane – Mental Health (Statement)
No dialogues, no debates, just this truth I must lay bare.
I converse with myself, tones shifting, burdened with despair.
We are not the architects of our fragile lives,
Granted free will, yet shackled by unseen binds.
Thoughts roam freely, hearts ache unsealed,
In darkness, we shine, but in light, wounds are revealed.
We are ill—emotionally, psychologically—perhaps even spiritually,
Fatigue, unrelenting, reveals itself cruelly.
Piece by piece, sign by sign, my body succumbs,
The weight of the world suffocates, leaving my spirit numb.
If healing lies in retreat, then I must pause,
Abandon the chaos, examine the flaws.
Break from work, from friendship, from this tainted sphere,
Before stress claims me, its shadow drawing near.
I am dying—not in blood, not in pulse,
But in the silent depths where no tests consult.
My strength is compared to a horse, yet I cannot run,
A race against time, a battle that can't be won.
I am unwell but willing to heal,
To rediscover what it means to feel.
I’ve read the chronicles of anxiety, of stress,
Watched stories of legends consumed by their duress.
Benoit, Pillman, and others who fell,
Icons reduced to cautionary tales we tell.
I see now, I’m a danger to myself,
A threat to the life I could restore to health.
I hold potential—a career to build,
A son my mother dreams to see fulfilled.
A brother, a partner, a husband someday,
A beacon of hope, yet I wither away.
Doctors have listened, but still, I crawl,
Fatigued, hopeless, against life’s wall.
I need to rest—
Ndidinga uphumla.
Let these words echo, a plea, a prayer,
For those who walk this path, heavy and bare.
Let rest not be an escape, but a chance to renew,
To rise, to heal, to find what’s true.
