I Stutter By Veena Shankar Kunnath

Those words that you casually throw to the winds,
Words pronounced with the fluidity of a flying bird at ease;
Those words – oh those words- to me, are like diamonds;
They need to be polished, worked on, practiced, repeated-
Untill they tumble out of my mouth with seemingly effortless ease-
To bring my racing thoughts to an understandable pace,
To slow down, to bring my point across.
My sentences don’t end with an elegant parameter,
They have no rhyme nor order much like this poem;
Because I stutter.

I get stuck on words;
Syllables get repeated at an alarming rate,
Bespectacled and stuttering- they made me the symbol of a prototype nerd,
My “supposed embarrassment” on display to the world.
Yes. I stutter.

I jump hurdles over difficult words,
I navigate my way through potential blocks,
I switch languages, I shuffle words;
My brain constantly plays juggle with a million synonyms for words.
Yes, I stutter.

I stutter because I dare to speak.
I stutter because I have a voice of my own.
Yes, I stutter
and this is what my voice sounds like.