"the rock in my throat" - july #8
on what it's like having a stutter and facing the negative perceptions
you will feel a rock in your throat.
and your tongue will not be able to move
and it will be better to not look
at the person you’re talking to
because when you meet their eyes
you will become aware of your face–
contorted and shameful
and stuck,
aware of your hands–
flapping themselves around
like a penguin,
and aware of your blinking–
fast as a falcon’s wings.
your muscles will freeze,
as if in a terrible dream,
and the words will come out
hard. like a flood breaking
through a dam. you will
scramble to gather them up
like lost marbles.
that moment will stretch
to heaven and hell
and when it ends,
you will hate yourself.
you will stab their knives into your chest,
thinking why me why me why me,
cursing your own affliction,
rather than the ones who made it a curse.
so for days and weeks and years,
your heart will brim with envy
towards those “who can actually talk,” and
unspoken words will tether you down.
you will crawl into your burrow, underground,
where your voice will not be heard,
because what is it worth?
why speak when it’s not the words that matter
but the smoothness in which you get them out?
just as a slow and hazy sunrise has no beauty
and a disheveled bird’s nest is not a home.
but you will speak when you must–
and be compared to
a malfunctioning robot,
a skip on a record,
a buffering video,
a broken toy.
and their faces will hold disgust–
or confusion, or pity,
or all three.
they will laugh and mock you
but in the same breath, ask,
“why are you so quiet?”
but then,
you w-w-will stop running in qu—
icksand.
eventually,
you will realize that the gods of
fluency
are nnnot coming for you.
and later,
you will realize that
you do not need those “gods,”
because it is not you
that needs to be
fixed–
it is them.
“stuttering is a speech disorder characterized by repetition or prolongation of sounds, and interruptions in speech” (NIDCD). it is a neurodevelopmental disorder (the exact cause is unknown, but we know that it is generally neurological or genetic). having a stutter can really SUCK; i won’t sugarcoat it. it is different everyday, and my acceptance of it is different everyday. there is no cure for it, though some people can “outgrow” their stutter (as in, it eventually just fades away). that is not the case for everyone. maybe i will outgrow it one day; maybe i won’t. but as for now, i will learn to accept it because it is a part of me i cannot change, and to emphasize— a part of me. at the end of the day, there is nothing wrong with having a stutter, but rather the stigma and discrimination surrounding it.