No Application Form

There is no application form
To be disabled
If there were
I do not imagine myself filling one

It is difficult to live in this world
Some people look at me
As a useless creature
Yet they do not know

They do not know
That they are lost
That I do things they can't

In the streets
Their attention is drawn
They stare
As if I've come from Heaven
Some look with merciful faces
Some with the eyes of ignorance

So if you see a disabled person
Do not laugh
It may happen to you
Because there is no application form

If there were
I do not imagine myself filling one

by Nomathemba Mkandla, Zimbabwe

(From No Application Form: Poems and Stories by
Women with Disabilities from
Southern Africa, ILO, 1993)