It's not your fault (A Poem)

Happy Belated New Year, I can't believe its 2025!

(You're probably reading this well after January anyway so I'm probably in the clear but I thought it was worth mentioning!)

This poem is written in the perspective of someone who stutters. A lot of people who stutter tend to blame themselves for the way they talk and sometimes, they may even blame the other person for not knowing how to act when they are stuttering. But it is not the fault of the person who stutters, they were simply born that way. It is not the fault of the other person, they are simply not used to it. We have been conditioned into thinking that fluency is the way to go and anything else is 'weird' or the 'other'.

So I'm encouraging society to rewrite this narrative a bit. Everyone deserves to be listened to without judgment. Not only does Society need to accommodate for people who stutter, we should all accommodate for difference.

Photo by Beyzanur K

It's not your fault

It's not your fault, 

that you don't know how to act,

when my words get trapped,

and no sound comes out,

Or even worse,
I sound like I’m struggling to breathe,
When my tongue won’t listen to my desire to speak freely. 

It’s not your fault that you finish my sentences,

That’s your way of helping, 

Because what grown up does not know how to talk,

And you think ‘she must need help to speak.’

It’s not your fault that you can't see my shame, 

My shame of taking up your time,

When I know you have somewhere else you’d rather be,

Then to slow down and listen to me. 

But it is not my fault that I was born this way, 

That I am taking up space,

That I’m taking up an extra second of your time, 

So that you can listen to what I have to say.

There is no fault in either of us, 

The fault lies in the belief that fluency is best, 

And our words must be controlled, 

But what about the rest of us?

The ones who don’t fit into that mould.