Direct Payment review

Today was my latest Local Authority Direct Payment review. It does not matter how many you have done or how confident you are, each time You go through one they are a terrifying experience. In that instant, you realise your life is on the line. Your anxiety levels for days before go sky high. 
 
After going through mine I authored the following poem "In the balance"  
 
 

In the balance   

just had my latest Direct Payment review   

Every time you have one your anxiety levels rise sky high.  

You spend your life shouting your independence.  

You then for one hour a year sell your soul   

to the L.A. representatives  

Perform like a non-functioning monkey  

 highlight being dependent for the day,   

So, you can continue to live independently.  

To prove you are worthy of their funding  

Not just another neo-useless eater  

It can make you feel so pitiful, so small  

You realise in an instant, your life is on a knife’s edge  

Your life is in the balance will you sink and drown  

Will you swim continue to thrive to drive onwards  

Knowing your life can be decided   

by the whim of the bureaucrat,   

Or an unsympathetic, uncaring politician    

It is not just your future you hold so delicately   

It is those you employ   

Can you tell me who else in this unbalanced society  

 must jump through such disabling hoops just to survive?  

  
© Robert Punton  

June 2023