No Crutches

my speech has been dragged through the mud
bashed up a brick wall, and watched itself
tumble into a katrillion pieces
my speech has been scalded and plucked
nip-tucked and given no pardons
my speech has longed for thunder to strike it
it has whimpered in the school bathroom
it has sealed itself up on the bus ride home

my speech has been passed over and picked over
been denied and made a scapegoat
my speech has been demoralized and left to fend for itself
and family ain’t no type of help
auntie on the side hollering
for your age, for your age
you can’t talk worth a damn

my speech has been warned, it has been duck-tapped
scurried under a table, hosed down and asked to be numb
my speech has been posted on a least wanted board
my speech has tried to hide in the trees,
tried to blend in with the air
my speech has played with knives
it has been tossed into the river
it has swam up river,
my speech has disciplined itself
pushed with every cell in its body
my speech almost saw the north star
but it always seems to plummet right back down

my speech has been made into a clown
it has had to fight off jokesters
it has had to fight off bad dreams
my speech has had dreams of hearses
it almost called 911,
it almost strangled itself with an extension cord
my speech has had maggots eat through it
my speech has been destituted and polluted
my speech has seen satan and the kidnapped boy
in the back of his basement

my speech has never found any four-leaf clovers
it has never taken its shoes off
my speech has never been able to come face to face with the mirror
it has never been able to find gold within itself
my speech has never been given any dignity
but all sorts of doubt
my speech knows all the doors to pain
and auntie still on the side hollering
for your age, for your age

__________

Poet and theater instructor Oak Morse was born and raised in Georgia. He was the winner of the 2017 Magpie Award for Poetry in Pulp Literature as well as a Semi-Finalist for the 2020 Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry. Awarded the 2017 Hambidge Residency, Oak’s work has appeared in Strange Horizons, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Menacing Hedge, Nonconformist Mag, Gone Lawn, and elsewhere. Oak has a B.A. in Journalism from Georgia State University and he currently lives in Houston, Texas where he teaches creative writing and performance and leads a youth poetry troop, The Phoenix Fire-Spitters. (@oak.morse)