I love the way you write
Is that poetry
No it’s dyslexia
At first I was shocked
When others referred to my writing
As poetry
I thought
What
Me
Write Poetry
How about
No way
That is creative
That is beautiful
That is special
That is intelligent
That is crafted
That is not me
I am none of those
Or am I
For as long as I can remember
I struggled
At times
Not always
With reading
With organizing
With planning
With seeing the big picture
So I learned to
Get by
Get by
As easily and effortlessly
As possible
Get by
Because I didn’t know another way
I didn’t know I was even doing it
I didn’t know I was cutting corners
I didn’t know I wasn’t doing it like everyone else
I just knew
I wasn’t getting it
And when I tried
To read for long periods of time
Write in long proper paragraph form
Create long term plans
That reach beyond a few moments from now
That my brain would just stopped
Literally stop
As if saying
Loudly
No way
I can’t
I won’t
I don’t even exist anymore
So I learned how to just
Get by
It seemed good to me
It worked
It got me here
However
It held me back
It limited me
It escaped my awareness
Until now
Until someone said
I love the way you write
Is that poetry
And shock flooded my system
MAKING me look
At what THIS actually is
This is MY form of dyslexia
It is how I write
It is how I learn
It is how I organize
It is what I do
It is what gets me ahead
Now
Now that someone brought it to my awareness
Now that I am allowing it to flow freely
Now that I refuse to question it any longer
Now that I am comfortable with how it works
This poetry of mine
Is mine
And finally today
I am here to say
This is how I write
This is how I show up
This is creative
This is beautiful
This is special
This is intelligent
This is crafted
This is me
