Growing Up with Cerebral Palsy
I. Infant
I began as an actuarial calculation
back when people did figures with a slide rule,
probably mixing a strange alchemy
of Euclid’s perfect numbers,
my two-pound weight,
and my mother’s painted on smile
to determine a 38% chance. Peter Singer
had not yet written
to reject my being a person.
II. Toddler
I crawled and continued to crawl,
and my mother’s world shrank
to what would never be. Dreams
like a blighted field. Children
are not the reason for divorce.
We mean to say, not the only reason.
III. Preschool
I wore leg braces under my pants
so my parents would feel normal.
This was my normal. Frankenstein’s Monster
clomped like me, and didn’t know
that all babies weren’t born by lightning.
IV. Elementary School
I learned that friends happen
when you stay very still,
never break a pencil, never go
to the sharpener.
Children aren’t innocent.
and they hunt in packs.
The principal said that a human bite
is filthier than a dog's when I bit
into Mickey’s forearm and spat
blood on him as his friend’s let go
of my arms.
Now they all just walk like me
when they think I’m not looking.
V. Junior High
These years are a burning fuse
for a town too small to have a McDonalds.
The acid of puberty mixed
with nothing to do made us fight. I never
stopped fighting, 138 times and then I quit
counting.
I started getting love letters
that was the way girls fought.
VI. High School
There was a cure for me.
Saw through the femur, and re-hamstring
like a guitar—a coin flip of normal or wheelchair.
I missed being able to hit someone. It felt like love.
Kid in a wheelchair tells me how lucky I am.
Everyone’s heaven is someone’s hell.
The freedom of not giving a shit
is like a flower that breaks through the pavement.
I. Infant
I began as an actuarial calculation
back when people did figures with a slide rule,
probably mixing a strange alchemy
of Euclid’s perfect numbers,
my two-pound weight,
and my mother’s painted on smile
to determine a 38% chance. Peter Singer
had not yet written
to reject my being a person.
II. Toddler
I crawled and continued to crawl,
and my mother’s world shrank
to what would never be. Dreams
like a blighted field. Children
are not the reason for divorce.
We mean to say, not the only reason.
III. Preschool
I wore leg braces under my pants
so my parents would feel normal.
This was my normal. Frankenstein’s Monster
clomped like me, and didn’t know
that all babies weren’t born by lightning.
IV. Elementary School
I learned that friends happen
when you stay very still,
never break a pencil, never go
to the sharpener.
Children aren’t innocent.
and they hunt in packs.
The principal said that a human bite
is filthier than a dog's when I bit
into Mickey’s forearm and spat
blood on him as his friend’s let go
of my arms.
Now they all just walk like me
when they think I’m not looking.
V. Junior High
These years are a burning fuse
for a town too small to have a McDonalds.
The acid of puberty mixed
with nothing to do made us fight. I never
stopped fighting, 138 times and then I quit
counting.
I started getting love letters
that was the way girls fought.
VI. High School
There was a cure for me.
Saw through the femur, and re-hamstring
like a guitar—a coin flip of normal or wheelchair.
I missed being able to hit someone. It felt like love.
Kid in a wheelchair tells me how lucky I am.
Everyone’s heaven is someone’s hell.
The freedom of not giving a shit
is like a flower that breaks through the pavement.
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson