A teacher’s words:
“Why didn’t you listen?
Listen more and pay more attention!”

The sound of laughter,
From your comrades
And the smile that twitches your lips.
Oh boy, you’re enjoying this,
I can tell you are
From that suppressed smirk upon your face.
You’ve been waiting
And waiting for this opportunity.
Ever since that day
I had to correct your teaching
Of faulty sign language.
You’ve done it,
Leaping at it like a starving vulture.

Why didn’t I listen?
You know full well why.
You see these blue moulds
And these little machines
Hanging by each ear?
I pointed them out to you
And told you
That I am deaf
When we first met a few months ago.
You tell me to listen more
And to pay more attention
I do not choose
When I can and can’t hear.
Nor do I choose
What I want and do not want to hear.

You sit here,
Calling yourself a supporter of deaf awareness
And you founded
The British Sign Language club.
You try to teach people sign language,
And to raise awareness and knowledge
Of deafness and Deaf culture
.Yet, you sit here
And scream at me,
Telling me to listen more
Instead of not listening.
Why call yourself a supporter
If you barely understand the disability?
You yell at me for not listening
But I am deaf
And you have researched it
And even tried to raise awareness.
Why are you a learning support assistant
If you abuse your position
And never understand disabilities?

we've been fighting over the same things for thousands of years
religion, money, power, land
things that keep us separate
things that keep us fighting

keeping us in the dark

shouldn't we have realized by now
that categorizing humans stagnates progression

because when you're blinded by

ego
hate
ignorance

"differences"

how will you know which direction is forward?

What makes us different
can not compare
to reasons we're the same.

we're the same, don't they understand?

'they' love
we love

'they' pretend salt water has never flooded their eyes
and us,
well, we pretend too.

And though we have yet to see their tears,
and they have yet to notice ours

the blind can still feel
the blind can still listen
the blind can still hope
the blind can still pretend

Pretending we don't all shut our eyes every night,
hoping things will be alright.

hoping blindly
they/us/we
will open our eyes tomorrow

and stop fighting those who love and cry like us.
Realize how alike we humans are.

Smile. They are watching.
Silence. They are listening.
Run. They are behind you.
Hide. They are coming.
Deny. They suspect.
Admit. They know.
Give in. They have won.

They won because you smiled,
Because you allowed them to silence you.
Because you ran,
Because you denied,
Because you admitted.
You lost because you gave in.
Give yourself a round of applause, they caught you.

Do not cry, do not lie, do not let the guilt eat you alive;
You are already dead.
At their hand, at your own.
Look at the bodies lying around you,
The ruined souls who too gave in.
You are not alone,
Your weakness is shared,
Part of the fabric of our ****** reality.

Do not blame them, they are not the only culprits.
You chose to be blind, to be deaf, to be something you are not.
You chose the disguise.
Now you cannot shed that cast.
Welcome to your new reality....
The reality of greed and pleasure;
Is it everything you dreamed it would be?
Or are the casualties staining your new life with their blood and broken bodies?

Welcome to Utopia.

pens ebb warm winter
crying snow was all melted
icicle's falling

This is a poem about someone else
so don’t look away
don’t hurt yourself
(when you look in their eyes)
you might see me staring back
I am the mirror
and you’ve picked out the devil in the details
so grab hold of the one you love
and tell them that with every touch
     you feel the sun rise from your hips
tell yourself it isn’t a sin
that you’re still moved by the tornadoes I stoked
     when I stroked your skin
and we could be so wrong together
like the stars and the moon
  destined to outshine the other
but we can never be right for anyone else
(but) this is a poem about someone else
and if you’re on your own
don’t look away
don’t hurt yourself.