I’m tired of all the prayers and the apologies People who care tell me I need to stop apologizing, but for once—-I am Not The One Apologizing. Not apologizing for my existence, as one of my close friends always tells me. Stop apologizing for existing. But, how can I stop when everyone seems to want to tell me that they are sorry for me? I don’t want your prayers or your ‘fake apologies’, because “the world doesn’t end, it just feels like it does.” I don’t know who I’m supposed to be when everyone keeps using their teacher pointer-finger to tell me that something is wrong with my body. My entire life, my own father asked me what was wrong with me, but not because he cared. I stopped having an answer to give people whenever they asked me this. When will people stop pointing their finger At Me? I’m not a circus attraction, I’m a human being. You’re sorry that this ‘happened’ to me? If someone else tells me this, I will fucking flee! I’m tired of the fake sympathy and the fake apologies. I’m tired of the unrealistic optimism—the unrealistic words that “maybe you will outgrow it. Sometimes if you are diagnosed when you are younger, you will outgrow it by the time you are old.” Just stop. Just fucking stop. Just stop with the stares, the prayers, and the apologies. I’ve expected the mourning of my own body, so why can’t you? Why do you feel the need to heal me? I don’t want to be healed and I didn’t ask for it. "But, does the world really end? They say it just feels like it does. But, would I actually rather be me?" Who is this version of me that everyone else sees? Who is she? Quotations in italics taken from the song, "I'd Rather Be Me', from the Mean Girls Musical.
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I’m 18 when I grow my flight feathers. They itch and stem from my shoulder blades. My mama rubs a towel onto my skin where the feathers have torn their way through me. I’m scared and shaking. I still don’t know why, don’t know how this is happening. There’s a party for me. Mama cuts two slits in the back of my thobe. My thobe is a beautiful embroidered dress. I feel bad cutting it up. We dance, all my female relatives, in thobes like mine, wings proudly jutting out from their backs. My wings are small. There’s still room for them to grow. I spread them as much as I can, mimicking the way the other women move their wings. We all dance with platters full of candles and flowers held on our heads. I take a platter and balance it the best I can with one hand while fan out my skirt with the other, bunching up the fabric. Learning to fly is difficult, but I teach myself how to stay in the air pretty quickly. When I fly, I imagine that everything below me belongs to me because I flew over it. When I fly, I feel what little freedom I am afforded. Flying is an exclusively female freedom. No men have grown wings. I take great pride in my flight feathers. In the twin slits in the back of my thobe. In my wind-blown hair. Even the pain of molting. All the good and bad. Wings are a rite of passage, and I have grown my flight feathers. About the author:
Yasmeen Amro is a neurodivergent author with publications in Fusion Fragment and State of Matter. She enjoys reading, writing, and baking.
Flying towards the beautiful, distant horizon the pilot, in charge, scrutinized the brain focused on center of runway Suddenly, the snow twirled and swirled stroke causes plane to slide off the end of tarmac what’s going to happen? With grit and strength determination rules aphasia now controls the airspace Landed in a foreign country cannot speak or understand the language new journey is ready to begin About the author:
Rochelle M. Anderson lives in Minnesota, USA. She is an attorney who had a severe stroke in 2007 and almost died. She is still disabled with difficulty walking; and because of aphasia struggles with reading and writing. Ms. Anderson has been published in four chapbooks and in an online poetry journal. Writing poetry has helped her recover; and dictation fuels her words.
Forest, dark and scary. Will I lose the magic beans? Animals speak, ogres growl, and wolves disguised. Fairy tales read to me as a child, are remembered as an adult. My story begins with a black, pointed hat and scraggly broom. A witch suddenly appears, casts a spell, and causes a stroke that almost kills me. Grey matter twisted, and the enchantress short circuits my brain. Aphasia is a serpent that stings, an ordeal of shadows and contrasts. My mind is filled with jumbled shapes, nonsense words, and mixed-up colors. Demons shout sinister curses. Still cloudy, but I see the sun start to peek through. About the author:
Rochelle M. Anderson lives in Minnesota, USA. She is an attorney who had a severe stroke in 2007 and almost died. She is still disabled with difficulty walking; and because of aphasia struggles with reading and writing. Ms. Anderson has been published in four chapbooks and in an online poetry journal. Writing poetry has helped her recover; and dictation fuels her words.
The woods are mysterious with trees that mark the trail. Branches tightly packed, light wanes, and the moon provides no illumination. I am lost without a map or compass. Now nighttime, hear a chorus of frightening sounds. Alone in a hedge labyrinth, unable to find the exit. Disability steals the rainbow, colors grayed and dark. I dream of life before the stroke, when all I knew about the brain was a green gelatin mold for Halloween. I wake up and the nightmare returns. Like Rumpelstiltskin, I stomped my feet and disappeared down a chasm. Will I ever leave my fairy-tale world? About the author:
Rochelle M. Anderson lives in Minnesota, USA. She is an attorney who had a severe stroke in 2007 and almost died. She is still disabled with difficulty walking; and because of aphasia struggles with reading and writing. Ms. Anderson has been published in four chapbooks and in an online poetry journal. Writing poetry has helped her recover; and dictation fuels her words.
Wind batters a tattered climber, fingers stained bean green. His mother always told him, “Your head’s in the clouds!” A kingdom in the sky! His heart thunders with the lightning, booming over the castle, gleaming solid gold! About the author:
Dr. Anna Cates teaches writing, literature, and education online and has published a variety of books (poetry, fiction, and drama) through www.cyberwit.net, prolificpress.com, redmoonpress.com, and wipfandstock.com. Her full-length poetry collection, Love in the Time of Covid, won an Illumination Book Award. She resides in Wilmington, Ohio with her two cats.
He sailed across the sea, where there be dragons, beneath a sea green moon, soldiering, though muscle and might could not defeat the magi’s hex he fought. From fields swampy with blood, warlocks netted him, bound him in a neon green wizard’s warp, caged him in a nebulous fate. The king’s daughters paced in their pink slippers along the marble floor before him, tossing up their noses and shielding cleavage in arrest. They labeled him “The Beast!” Bat-like wings sprang from his nut-brown back, and rocky brows overhung his gleaming eyes. But Beatriz, a chambermaid, didn’t see animal in those onyx orbs but intelligence instead. She brought him water, cheese, and bread. His biceps boomed with the lift of each bite, his regard never abandoning her. One day, as she handed him a flask of new wine, turquoise eyes in a pearly face met his gaze, and love carried her away like a hawk with a field rabbit. The day before his scheduled execution, she fell to her knees before the throne, dark braids to the floor, hands knotted in plea, and begged the king: Spare the Beast! After a day or two of pondering, like a falconer setting free his falcon, the king bid his top mage: Release the prisoner! Like a meteor exploding, with sparkly magic, the lock burst. The two wed—a beauty and a beast: Oh, Beatriz! Oh, Beast! Breast to breast, their two hearts meshed. About the author:
Dr. Anna Cates teaches writing, literature, and education online and has published a variety of books (poetry, fiction, and drama) through www.cyberwit.net, prolificpress.com, redmoonpress.com, and wipfandstock.com. Her full-length poetry collection, Love in the Time of Covid, won an Illumination Book Award. She resides in Wilmington, Ohio with her two cats.
Sundry dark souls sleep ‘neath elden loam Tenebrous tendrils wind ‘round their bones Spirits arise from under the benighted hills At the pipers’ skillful and enchanting trills Playing the haunted dances of eldritch fae As they gather together from glen and brae Ambling down through moon-silvered dells To dance the reels where the fae kings dwell Whose brows are crested in woven starlight Though their hearts are robed in midnight But should you harken to that piping sweet And in dreaming, venture where they meet To find yourself amidst their merry halls Pray the light dark charms forestall 100-year sleep that purple planet called dreams . . . awaken me before the thorns envelop me NOTE: Unitalicised text is the work of Edward Cates. Italicised text is the work of Anna Cates. About the authors:
The late Edward Dana Cates (2/23/69-11/12/23) was a disabled househusband and writer/poet from Seymour, Indiana. He attended George Fox University and served on Deviant Art’s literature committee, where he acquired many mutual fans and friends. The original versions of his poems are fully illustrated a viewable at his online gallery: https://www.deviantart.com/barosus/gallery. Dr. Anna Cates teaches writing, literature, and education online and has published a variety of books (poetry, fiction, and drama) through www.cyberwit.net, prolificpress.com, redmoonpress.com, and wipfandstock.com. Her full-length poetry collection, Love in the Time of Covid, won an Illumination Book Award. She resides in Wilmington, Ohio with her two cats.
It started with pain between the shoulder blades, like Nyx had placed the eclipsed moon inside, forever hidden. A calcified cave – a coiled cloak of darkness enfolded the softness that remained of that body. I wore it well, this forever home. The pain dissolved into rain as the storm coaxed clouds to empty. I felt better then, filled with water, forever heavy. A delicious soft foot, I learned to contract like lightning bolts, relax like mulch. And moved faster than I had forever. My power oozed from my mouth, sleek slimy stringy mucus, no longer a cough burden. Fast comet tail highways forever. My shell expanded with calcified excitement, the night and I foolish friends, free in this shadow air, forever healthy. About the author
Samantha is based in Plymouth, UK where she is a PhD Creative Writing candidate at the University of Plymouth exploring chronic illness through poetry. Her poetry has been published in Arc, Acumen, Room, Cephalopress, The Storms Journal and Causley International. Samantha is an ex nurse who lives with complex chronic illness and neurodiversity.
About the author
Samantha is based in Plymouth, UK where she is a PhD Creative Writing candidate at the University of Plymouth exploring chronic illness through poetry. Her poetry has been published in Arc, Acumen, Room, Cephalopress, The Storms Journal and Causley International. Samantha is an ex nurse who lives with complex chronic illness and neurodiversity. |
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