Disabilities You Can't See, My Disability Meta-Fork poem

[bearpoeticwords]

This is a performance piece, and I have a video for it, but the poem is still powerful and I wanted to get this on here as soon as possible.

Disability Meta-Fork

You think you understand me but you don't.

You think a disability, is something you can see.

What's more, you think it means I'm weak,

Or maybe just a freak.

If not too meek to speak.

Just the insufferable neighbor,

Worse than a whiny-ass  cur.

That neurotic psychotic

Degenerate misfit piece of shit.

It's ok, you don't have to say it.

I learned long ago how to except those who don't except me.

I understand you don't understand I can't see.

I can accept that you don't accept me,

Because the thing that makes me strong,

Is I know how to accept those who don't belong

But obviously you are unfamiliar with what it means to be blessed by a disability

that no one can see.

You think you know me

Because you see so perfectly….

Through that  prejudice  prism of normality.

You try to judge and impose,

But the truth never shows,

Well to hell with the world you think you see,

Cause I got dissonance and harmony,

Melancholy and melody,

Bitter-sweet serendipity,

Swirl'n  in and around and through and through me;

ADHD creativity and energy

Bounce'n through my brain

Like a pinball-bullet train.

Skittering from synapsis to synapsis,

Erratic as static,

Every thought half wrought,

Can't be caught

By the tip of your…

Touretts tong tick'n like a tachyon,

Tap'n out a song,

Drummer riff'n on a rhyme.

Keep'n crazy constant time,

OCD sting'n like a bee,

Count'n every step,

Know'n every rock and tree

Just in case I got'a flee,

Jump-kick'n cross the lawn,

Dance'n like a swan

Just in case I got'a fight,

Got'a do it twenty times,

Till I know I got it right.

Ride'n the bi-polar roller-coaster round and round, town,

Chase'n the black dog clear across town,

Take'n the tiger by the tail till his teeth tear you down.

Till people think you're crazy,

But they'll never call you lazy.

Just a skitzoporenic, degenerate, misfit

piece of shit

Because I am a bear in human skin,

And when I look in the mirror,

I can't tell who's more afraid

And who's more jade;

The human on the outside,

Wish'n he could hide,

Or the bear within,

Wish'n he weren't trapped in this dam hapless human.

All you ever know

Is the side you think I intend to show.

You think you know me

Because you see so perfectly….

Through that  prejudice  prism of normality.

You try to judge and impose,

But the truth never shows,

Just That charismatic ursine personality.

Boo boo break'n free;

You think it's hard

Having to play the race card,

All you got to do to prove you're as good as the rest

Is pass a stupid standardized test.

How about a six word story for being a white guy with a Learning Disability;

Ironically,

You can't see I'm blind.

And not to belittle anyone's service to their country,

But not every PTSD

Stems from the military,

Some of us can only wish we had an I.E.D blow off our hand,

Cause a disability you can see,

is the only one the average anyone ever even tries to understand.

Abuse, disuse, recluse….

Accident, ignorent, stochastic event,

Iraq, Afghanistan,

Where's my Candy Land?

At least you can say

You got to play.

Cause they don't let blind guys with ADHD

Be all that they can be.

I'm not say'n it's wrong or right,

I'm just saying some of us don't ever have the opportunity,

The option to fight.

And I think even you Vet's will agree,

A life without duty,

Well that's just a life without purpose,

Worthless as piss.

And a lot of times that's exactly how I feel.

Cause I just won't ever have the ability to take the wheel.

And it takes twice as much effort to get half as far,

If you can't drive a car.

Friends, religion,

Career, kith and kin,

Life is nothing without a reason worth give'n.

And what about family?

Well they're all up here swinging right along side me from the same dam genetic tree;

Neck's stretched tight on the nooses of low income (if not outright poverty)

And the modern dysfunctional family.

Each fucked up fruit another phenotype too ripe.

And not to hold a gripe,

But Try being a parent of the aforementioned misshapen seed,

Struggling with a chronically underfunded public school system to get their student

the support they need

To have a chance to succeed.

Try'n to teach their teen to self advocate

Tell'n them "You can be great",.

Not your average knife in the drawer,

You're something special, something more.

Dyslexic, eclectic,

ADHD, energetic creativity,

Asburgers, autistic artistic

Awe hell let's be realistic…..

You're just another fork who's fucked!

And every razor-tipped tine's

Another needle shot, stabbed straight into your spine.

Cause once you get to be about 25,

If you haven't figured it out,

how to survive,

How to control every little tick and twitch,

Carved out your own little social niche,

Well good luck chuck,

Cause the world don't give a fuck.

Cause the children are the future, but you're not a kid any more,

And there just isn't enough government aid

To reach someone that old and that jade.

And If you don't bear your bane

Like a brand upon your chest,

if you don't wield your weakness

Like a white tipped cane,

Well then I'm sorry son but we can't celebrate your pain,

You must just be insane.

If you don't walk with a limp or a lisp, or speak american sign,

Then then you must be just fine,

And no one gives a fork about you're fucked up tine.

Too late to try and fill your plate,

You're just another body to fill the line.

Cause the cold truth is that some of us simply ARE superfluous to the economy,

And if you're able to make ANY money,

Well then you know you're DAM lucky,

So just show up, sit down, shut up

And do your job

You quixotic slob.

Life ain't filled with rainbows and ponies and lollypops and care-bears,

It's bosses and bills and welfare lines

And fees and fines,

Dates and deadlines.

So fake it till you make….it

It takes too to lie,

One to deceive,

And one to

God dam better believe

It takes twice as much effort to get half as far

If you can't drive a car!

Injustice of reality, of this narcissistic, society of bashful bigotry,

If you don't have a crutch or a chair,

Then don't  nobody know to care.

Cause that takes time,

And that's just too precious and rare.

Cause there's just too many lies

For society to scrutinize and recognize

The truth of your cries,

From the wolf in disguise.

People only want to understand,

What they can see placed plainly in the palm of their hand.

Security guard

Want's to see a service dog's ID card,

Request goes against the ADA,

But what the hell, I guess I could play,

Order one off the internet

And come back like it was no sweat.

But on second thought, screw it.

Who needs you're lousy lilac festival anyway?

Principle's just too high a price to pay.

And I can accept that;

I can accept  that you don't accept me,

Because I understand, that you don't understand I don't see.

And that's The thing that makes me strong,

Is I know how to accept those who don't belong

And the hard truth may be that some of us really are superfluous to the economy,

but no one…. NO ONE, should be superfluous to society.

And everyone, EVERYONE, no matter how schizophrenic, eugenic, radicalized, unsocialized, psychotic or neurotic,

deserves a bit of compassion empathy.

A bit of humanity.

And if we want to teach anyone any empathy,

We need to start by asking ourselves, "what's the disability I DON'T see?"  Cause it's all a spectrum of personality.

And we're all up there some where, in the U.V.

So please,

try to be just a bit more blind,

Because the best way to keep an open mind,

Is to look at the world like you know you're half blind.

Cause when you know you can't see perfectly,

You know you never have the whole picture,

The only thing you're certain of is uncertainty,

Because there's always more to the truth and beauty,

Than the freakish facade of the thing you think you see.

And I'm not say'n I do it all the time every time first rate,

Cause even though I'm listen'n hard,

It's hard to listen.

Cause my muse, my brain, my bane, keeps tell'n me there's something I'm miss'n

So I forgot what it was I was just about to do,

But I assure you I intend to,

Because I even wrote it down,

Then forgot where I put the pater seven seconds after I turn around.

But I know that it's never too late,

Cause even though my vision's not so great,

Hindsight is always 20/20.

Just cause I'm not always aware, doesn't mean I don't care.

Maybe it means I just don't know how to share

… how to dare

So I just sit and stare,

Just another thorn on the wall of roses,

Making pretty poses.

Trapped in this caustic cage of middle age rage.

Cause every time I think to try,

The words run dry and I want to cry,

Cause I'm drown'n in sand

And no one…. NO ONE…. can EVER understand.

Some people be sing'n "don't let the disability define",

But that's like say'n

don't let the grape of the vine

Form the flavor for the wine.

What the hell's wrong with me?

L.D,

Can't say it, but I can

Paint it        Play it,

Write it,       Work it

Dream it,     Dance it,

Build it,

Sculpt it,     Score it,   Sing it,    Solve it,

Like Shakespeare, Da Vinci,

Dvorak,        Nijinsk,

Pavarotti and Fibonacci

Rolled into one.

that's it, I'm done