Lewis Raynes Poet Spoken Word

Notes About The Poem

When the state refuses to step in and assist a person with serious mental health needs, but someone else does, and has success despite the state's refusal to help. success is measured by the stopping of self harm and suicide ideation. This is a fictional write.

Broken: They believed her performance while he saved her

                                    Stage: Dim light. One chair center stage. Props:
                  •	A clipboard
                  •	A single sheet of blank paper
                  •	A small hand mirror
                  •	A pen or pencil
                  Reader stance: Stand still, hands empty, facing the audience.

      (Take one slow step forward. Let your voice drop into a low, observational tone—almost clinical.)

They called it crisis,
but some crises arrive
already knowing their marks.

      (lift your hand as if presenting an invisible stage. Gesture outward, palm up, like introducing a tragic performer.)

She learned early
how pain performs.
Which sentences stall the room.
Which stories soften the G men.
She wore suffering deep like a script—

      (Pick up the clipboard. Hold it like an evaluator, not a helper. Glance at it coldly after each dramatic phrase.)
      (This visually reinforces the poem’s critique of bureaucratic detachment.)

razor blade announcements,
selective truths,
e-bombs 
      (then blow to convince.)

      (Lower the clipboard. Let your voice soften—not dramatic, but resigned. Look slightly past the audience, not at them.)

She spoke the language of death
fluently,
not to be saved
but to be believed.

Thoughts, threats, rebellion, lust—
outlaws dying loud and famous—
everything dramatic,
everything rehearsed,
nothing reaching for repair.

      (Turn your back halfway to the audience. Hold the clipboard against your chest like a shield. This creates a physical “looking away.”)

And the state?
The state chose eloquence over evidence.
They watched from a distance,
clipboards clean,
waiting for the wounded one
to walk herself through the door.

They believed the performance.
They trusted the telling.
They called it autonomy
and looked away.

      (Place the clipboard on the floor. Sit in the chair. Shift your tone to warm, grounded, human.
This is the emotional pivot of the performance.)

Meanwhile,
He stayed.

Stayed with the mess.
Stayed with the midnight thoughts.
Stayed when help was paperwork
and care was conditional.

      (Pick up the blank sheet of paper and pen. Let the pen hover over the page as if catching falling thoughts. Do not write—just hold the possibility of writing.)

He tried to map the mind
instead of managing the image.
Let the thoughts spill out on paper
so they wouldn’t spill into endings.

      (Lift the small mirror briefly, angled toward the audience, then lower it.)

Painted her face back into herself
when mirrors had given up.

      (Deliver this line directly to the floor, not the audience.
Look down. Let silence hang for one full breath before continuing.)

He didn’t need an audience.
He didn’t need to be right.
He just needed her to live.

      (As you read the closing lines about quiet work being uncounted and victims fixing what lies break, Stand slowly. Leave the paper on the chair. Walk forward until you’re close to the audience.
End with your hands empty—symbolizing the caregiver’s uncredited labour.)

But in stories like this,
the quiet work
is rarely counted.

The victim is often the one
trying to fix what lies
get rewarded for breaking.

      (After the last line, do not bow. Just hold still for three seconds, then walk offstage without looking back. It reinforces the poem’s theme: the real work is quiet, unseen, and uncelebrated.)

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