Broken Habits; A Poem

This is a poem about holding myself accountable in relation to letting my stutter control my life. 

I need to admit that when I was younger, even in the last 5 years, I really did let my stutter control alot of what I did. I let my stutter stop me from doing things outside of my comfort zone. I did not get to live the life I wanted to lead because of my speech. In this poem, I do not blame the world around me or the situations I was put in. I recognize that, while the world can be cruel to people who stutter, I taught myself how to fear stuttering. I let thoughts of not feeling good enough because I was not fluent hold me back of speaking up. Now, as I'm older (and hopefully a little wiser) I do not need to be that version of me anymore. I can choose to speak up, even though I still stutter. 

Photo by Thiago Matos

Broken Habits

As I feel myself getting older,
I often sit and wonder,
about all of those learned behaviours,
I learnt when I was younger.

I learnt not to raise my hand,

for fear of stuttering out loud,

I learnt to look at the ground,

as I stumbled through all those sounds and syllables,

each one more knotted than the next. 

I learnt how to fear my own name,

to only talk when I was talked to,

to keep my ideas in my head,

to swallow my words whole. 

And who taught me these habits,

who taught my words had no value if they were not fluid?

I could blame the world around me,

Yes this world can be impatient,

but I must recognize that I was also my best teacher,

and I taught myself how to live in fear. 

Now, I do not need to revise what I used to hold dear,

there is value in my words,

I can now look you in the eye,

I have learned to raise my hand,

and my stutter is still here.