Allison Palmer
Professor Foss
Dislit
23 April 2020
Major Project
Permanent Darkness
He keeps telling me to just do it.
It won’t hurt, he says.
My coarse fingers loosen slightly from the railing.
Below the sidewalk looks welcoming, with its arms wide.
He isn’t wrong. No one would care, or notice.
I make eye contact with a cardinal flying by
He has a look of peace that I feel my heart reaching for.
She says don’t, and reminds me of the baby.
It wouldn’t be fair, she says.
The railing pulls me closer, closer than my husband has in a long time.
The people below are smiling and waving, do they want me to come to them?
She is wrong, the baby would be better off.
Time slows down and the bird stops and stares.
Then I am him. I am flying through the sky.
My fingers caressed the railing goodbye.
The sounds of people and cars fill the air, but all I hear is my heart.
It’s no longer reaching or lost.
He was right, it didn’t hurt.
The sidewalk absorbed me and made me feel whole.
And all at once the darkness was permanent.
The Butterfly Within
On the petal of a lily sat a butterfly
A butterfly bluer than my tears
His wings flutter open attempting to fly
He stumbles to the ground
Struggling to hold himself up
His one wing broken, his downfall
His tiny legs climb the flower’s stem
As he reaches the edge of the petal
His broken wing flaps in the wind
He dives off the petal and soars
The broken wing being uplifted by the wind, this time his advantage
50/50
The bars on the windows keep me from falling out
But they also block my view of the people below.
The padded walls are soft against my aching body
But they also make me feel small.
The jacket keeps me warm
But it also pulls my arms too tight.
The pills taste good in pudding
But they also make me feel empty inside.
I feel safe
But I also feel alone.
Feelin’ Alive
The sound of silence can be quite lovely.
Silence fills me with peace when I find myself adrift.
I feel the music within as it flows through my tired veins.
It is a warmth one feels radiating from a smile.
My ears may fail me, but I am liberated through touch.
I may not be able to hear the first words my mother ever spoke to me
But I felt her love overpower me everytime she caressed my hair.
My ears do not understand the complexity of song
But my body follows through by creating their own art in dance.
The “I’m sorry’s” mean nothing to me
It’s the embrace that eliminates any darkness within.
One touch lights the flame within.
Without touch, the body is numb,
a person can survive without hearing a pin drop,
But physical numbness leads to emotional numbness.
To be numb, is to be empty.
As long as I can dive myself deep within touch, I am full
I am alive.
My Home
Your eyes are a deep blue, but they are unfamiliar with the blue of sadness and pity
They paint my entire body as they go up and down, not stopping at my misshapen legs
They stop at my starved lips; they hold them tight every night.
When your hands find mine they don’t count my fingers in disbelief,
Our hands dance together turning into two long lost lovers.
There is no ring holding you in as you fight back laughter,
Our laughs are insync with one another.
I am nobody’s puppet with strings pulling me, strangling me, to perform to someone else’s routine.
You raise me up and are my very own pedestal.
When I fall, it is not a rush to help
Instead you are right there beside me.
We lay there, your eyes swimming with in mine and despite the fall
Despite my misshapen legs
Despite my lost fingers
I feel safer than if I was wrapped in bubble wrap.
You aren’t my lover, you are my home.
My Lennie
He doesn’t know any better.
He never meant to hurt anyone, it was all out of curiosity.
The kind of curiosity kids project.
It’s not his fault, it’s just who he is.
He was born stupid, never had much sense to him.
They’ll want to hurt him real good this time.
I can’t let that happen, he really isn’t a monster, just stupid.
There is only one way to help him, to save him.
It won’t hurt, it’ll be quick and he’ll have no idea.
I close my eyes, point, and my fingers slowly grip the trigger.
BOOM
It’s over, it’s what was best, he is better now.
Character
I asked my Grandpa why he always drank out of the broken coffee mug.
The mug was a faded brown with speckles that fell off in the dishwasher and a nut size crack missing from the rim.
He picked up the rugged mug, took a sip of the bitterness and out migrated a smile.
“My dear it is not broken, it has character,””
He slowly puts the mug on the slanted kitchen table
He grips his coarse wheels and wheels towards me with all of the strength left in him.
He places a coarse hand on my cheek,
“And it is character that fills this crazy life with beauty.”
diffabilities
I based my major project off of disabilities in poetry and the poems we read in class. I wanted to portray different disabilities and representations in my poems with different formats and voices. My process consisted of reading the poems that we read in class and taking different themes, voices, and disabilities from the poems and from other texts in class. After reading the poems I took time on each individual poem and would only focus on that poem before moving on to the next. This step allowed me to get in the mindset for that poem and pour all of my creative thinking into it. I decided I wanted to include different disabilities to present a variety of perspectives and feelings regarding disability; I wanted to also allow for inclusion. I had different goals for different poems trying to incorporate different ideas surrounding disability. My main goal was to present how I feel regarding disability and the feeling of freedom they deserve and that they are human and are capable of living the way they want to. I wanted to represent some social issues regarding disability and how people believe people with disabilities are incompetent and can not take care of themselves or make their own decisions. I also wanted to take on some of the poets’ tone regarding disability which is usually portraying people with disabilities as broken, so I included that, but I transformed the brokenness to appreciation. My other main goal was to create and highlight the beauty behind disability and the sense of ownership with disability.
My first poem is called “Permanent Darkness” and is about a mother who is dealing with postpartum depression and is hearing voices. She ultimately decides to commit suicide after a long battle with her inner self and voices. I wanted to include depression in the lists of my poems because it is a debate whether mental illness is a disability and how it is viewed in society. I wanted to show the inner battles one may face with this disability and I the title “permanent dankness” represents that committing the suicide may have freed her from her metaphorical darkness, but it was ultimately ending the light in her life. My Next poem “50/50” represents another disability regarding mental illness and it is someone in what could be considered a psychiatric hospital. I wanted to portray what it feels like from the perspective of the person with the disability and how they felt about the situation and I wanted to show pros and cons, even though the cons may outweigh the pros.
“Feelin’ Alive” represents someone who is deaf and I am someone who actually shares that disability, though I may not be fully deaf yet it still was something I wanted to cover because of my personal connection. The poem allows for readers to understand that just because someone who is deaf cannot hear, does not mean they are missing out, they simply just experience the world through a different light that is almost brighter. “My Home” is one of my favorites because I wanted to depict a physical disability, while presenting the love between a person with a disability and a non disabled person. This poem is meant to show a healthy relationship between the two and that despite what some people may consider “flaws” they still love each other and are there for each other like any other relationship.
The poem “My Lennie” is obviously based on the story Of Mice and Men and the characters Lennie and George. However, I wanted to present it in a different light, possibly suggesting it was not in their story, but yet two people who have the same experience as them; two best friends, one with a disability and one who considers himself a caretaker. I wanted to have the poem in the perspective of a caretaker with the personality of George to represent the idea that caretakers sometimes believe they are doing what’s best for the person with a disability by taking their lives into their hands and making decisions for them. The absence of names within the poem leaves it open to interpretation about who it is about and for. Lastly, my poem “Character” is about a grandfather who has a physical disability and is in a wheelchair. The grandpa is having a conversation about a broken mug he favors and the broken mug is a metaphor for disabilities and how people with disabilities are usually considered broken. However, the grandpa explains that it is not broken, it is character and the character within the mug, or disabilities, is quite lovely. This poem is my favorite because not only does it show family relationships, it highlights beauty regarding disabilities and the ownership of disabilities. The grandfather finds that his disability is beautiful and without it the world would be absent of such beauty.
The major project was a wonderful experience and I enjoyed being able to create pieces of poetry I ultimately love regarding one of my favorite topics of discussion, disability. I see several points of significance regarding the final result of my major project, that are all beneficial. One significance is the take away I have from the project and how I got to see and take on different perspectives regarding disability and I got to appreciate different disabilities and different representations of those disabilities. Lastly the ultimate significant factor of the final result of the project is that I got to show disabilities in a different light and highlight the beauties, but also the issues regarding disabilities, such as freedom and belief that disability means broken. My goal was to get readers to see disabilities in a different life and the problems revolving around seeing them only as a problem or something they are stuck with, that they are abnormal or a monster. I believe the ultimate significance was an awakening for readers.
Word Count: 1889
“I pledge”….Allison Palmer
