Jessie Harper Major Paper Project

Jessie Harper

Dr. Chris Foss

Disability and Literature

13 April 2021

Their Pain is Relatable

            Each story we have read in this class was vastly different in a multitude of ways. At the same time each story told the same story. Of someone who was experiencing their own take of their disability and the human condition. I say the human condition because of what the human condition, which is living life, growing, your experiences, conflicts, emotions and so much more. Which being disabled is just another way of living the human condition with experiences, conflicts, and unbelievable emotions. With every story you can see these things within them. Because of this, those stories inspired and gave me the bravery to write some of my own story.  In this project I have laid the framework for 5 original poetry pieces of my story that I hold close to my heart. I related especially to two stories we have read so far this semester.

One of those actually being Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Being an outsider because of my gender identity, but also feeling Frankensein’s creature of being cut and pasted together to be me and no one understand me for those choices. Hating the scars, I see in the mirror because they shouldn’t have to be there in the first place but knowing without them, I would have what used to face me in the mirror that much more. This is shown in my poetry piece called The Cuttings of the Creator. In this poem I connect with how the creature is created, cut and sewn back together. The idea that if I have all of the surgeries done, I will look like the creature in particular areas. Like the creature I feel like because of this, the world might never fully look at me and not pull away.  

The other piece we read that hit me the hardest and got the words flowing through my veins to the keys was Laurie Clements Lambeth’s Symptoms. This piece talks about how it feels to have MS. She illustrates a remarkable picture for you to understand what life is like inside her skin. I have a paralyzed vocal cord, so this work of art gave me a path to telling others what it is like being inside my skin. Having a paralyzed vocal cord can mean many different things. For me at first, I couldn’t talk at all or breath very well. Now with help and stubbornness I can talk but will lose my voice easily. However, I still cannot breathe like everyone else. That is my main focus in the three poems I wrote about this. The first being, Walk in my Shoes a poem that is very much like Laurie Clements Lambeth’s Symptoms giving the reader the ability to, for a moment, feel how I do to have this. The second being, Ode to the Scar which is meant to be a satire about the scar that is left behind from the surgery that resulted in me having the paralyzed vocal cord. Then lastly Under the Flesh, a piece of how I felt when I was first dealing with all anger, frustration, and pain of it, wanting to just end it all and praying that it was not real.

My last poetry piece is my most vulnerable part about myself. Thinking about it now I feel drawn to Lennie in Of Mice and Men. This being because of how those around him think he is stupid. Growing up I was perceived as such myself. I have a learning disorder that makes it difficult to read. The poem starts out with what I felt everyone was saying every time I could not pronounce groupings of letters. For years I was treated as Lennie was when someone found out that I was “learning impaired”. The torment from not only my fellow classmates but also adults as my pieces highlights a teacher in my youth that was the start of my downward spiral. At the age of 23 I was barely at a 7^th grade reading level having to rely on other people to help me be an adult, to read things to me, and help me understand what it meant. Such as Lennie did with George.

Poetry have always been a way for me to get out my most raw feelings and the stories we have encountered this semester have made many of those feelings surface. So, to have a project to be able to use that outlet to express that was both a great way to reflect as well as process what we had been reading for this class.

_______________________________________________

The Cuttings of the Creator

Like the monster made by a man

I too have a demand

To cut

the flesh and tissue from my breast

Where mirrors play on the adding stress

Of being a man not in the foreground

But being trapped behind this lady’s frown

So, I will cut

the flesh and tissue from my breast

To give that mirror a rest

But that is not all there is

To become the His

Now to add, snip, snip and sew

The part that makes to stand and go

Yet through it all there is still a mixture

That fills my veins with the whisper

To cut a little deeper

Into making this creature

A man 

_______________________________________________

Walk in my Shoes

Take your hand and make a fist.

Take your fist and place it on the lower part of your neck.

Push on your neck with your fist till it is hard to breath.

How you would work breathing that way

or talk even breathing that way.

Would suck to be like that all the time?

This is how I breath.

With a paralyzed vocal cord.

Get winded sometimes from just talking,

or even trying to walk and talk.

Think about how hard working or exercising would be.

It’s impossible.

Can this be fixed?

No.

You learn to live your life, fighting with everything.

Trying to breath and life.

All you feel like you can do sometimes is, sit, and rot. 

_______________________________________________

Ode to the Scar

My heavy scar, you inspire me to write.

I love the way you bleed, and lead to voiceless and pain,

Invading my mind through day and night,

Always dreaming about the deadly champion.

Let me compare you to a sharp play?

You are more medley, powerful and dark.

Slim breeze flaps the noxious dancers of May,

And the springtime has the exhausting disembark.

How do I love you? Let me count the ways.

I love your esoteric neck and knife.

How your personality fills my days!

My love for you is the flowerful pfeiff.

Now I must away with a wearing heart,

Remember my stark words whilst we’re apart.
_______________________________________________

Under the Flesh

Suffocation;

Humiliation;

Gasping for air;

Is anyone there?

Give me a straw;

It’s better than this small;

Airway of life;

Losing grip on this knife;

Please take it back, I’ve had enough

I’m not this tough;

I can’t handle;

I want to blow out the candle.

Drowning with not water;

Fire from this collar;

Seeing the smile;

Begging for denial;

Air is not with me;

It has forsaken me;

With each breath I wish this a fantasy….

_______________________________________________

Turning the Page

Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid

In a corner trapped by a book I could not read

Crying because the word just would not connect

Begging for some kind of clue

To this little engine that could

But I could not

I was stupid she’d say

I was stupid they’d assumed

All my life stupid

All my fears circled this word stupid

I was stupid I could not read

Do words define us

Or do we define words

Stupid Stupid Stupid

Stupid Stupid Stupid

Stupid Stupid Stupid

NO!

NO!

NO!

I ttthhiinnk I tthink I ccaan I think I can

I think I can I think I can I think I can

I think I can

I know I can

I know I will

I will

I did