Craig A. Meyer

SPEAKING, SOMETIMES

Words are icicles.
As I st…st…
stutter and
stumble them out
of my tightened, terse lips, they cut their way
sharp, jagged
through my tongue,
past my teeth, lips. A chill
comes over me and
I'm frozen in time, stuck, cold.
Alone.

Others look at me.
Some cast down their eyes or
turn away. I know
what they are thinking:
should I say something
or finish the word?
Sometimes I circumlocute.
Sometimes I force it out, flinging out shards
of icy saliva.

Yet there are times
when the words melt
like a brook
tucked in the woods, flowing.
We can both relax and enjoy
the words.

Craig A. Meyer is a PhD Candidate in Rhetoric and Composition at Ohio University. His dissertation focuses on the similarities between speech dysfluency and written dysfluency. Through his work, he is helping establish speech dysfluency in the larger field of Disability Studies. This present work, coming from his own stuttering perspective, reminds us of the importance of understanding and acknowledging all disabilities, not just the more common or visual ones.