#deafness
undone magic
willed into space
splattering a sphere
out of order signs
nervous system working overtime
head honchos in charge
bulls working the yard
fairy dust turns to ****
chaffing into fragments
toned deaf colors
Feb 21
Feb 21, 2026 at 4:59 PM UTC
10 seconds
With the devil, on a gentry's phone
Breathe, misery, we found the truth
In the way, when a speed is harrowed for intone
Sister Amelia, saw you...
Take the time to him, for a fight and a flight of fancy
My drastic measure, and the skip of worth to due
Has the voice of an angel, with a bared promise to many
Boom...
And the devil is gone, with a dream's feather
The bird of paradise, has been named after doom
With a moment to tell a divine city, we ate a daring in leather
Panic ensues, if not the ingenue of a pillow
We'll stick to cotton, the fabric of choice to a legend
Special in love with surreal, we notice the joy of willow
Slow and gainly, the fog has come for me and the stitch in time...
Proud termites?
And the absolute unhuman will to get a **** in here
Still the ghost of the house, philosophy is sure to ask, by rights
Is it all right to take a picture of us, with your fickle finger...
Jan 20
Jan 20, 2026 at 11:38 AM UTC
Omniscient.
Impotent.
All seeing, all knowing
Into nothing
Nothing fertile.
The lonely cello
Wandering
When the angry wolf
You tried to tame
Lunged for your ear
And took your finger instead
Be grateful to not be dead
Down there
You were already hurting
Before your anger.
Alternately don't
Impose your topography
On another.
Expand beyond your finger tips.
Outstretched
Open up
To where your
Greatest wisdom
Is not knowing
The music you heard
Is climbing
Through shadows
Muffled at first
Now with acuity
Everything is there
For you to listen for
Omniscient,
In your grace.
Dec 15, 2025
Dec 15, 2025 at 3:09 AM UTC
She was a young woman,
from a world of
chaos.
But She tried to hide
that chaos behind her
smile.
At first she could hear
me crying in the
crib.
But by the time I talked,
her world was
silent.
She would watch my lips
while I said my
prayers.
But sometimes I would peek
at her with one
eye.
Records played in her head,
which only she could
hear.
But we would often
dance to their
beat.
She taught me old lyrics,
which we sang
off-key.
But those melodies
are still my
favorites.
Her world was silent.
But she made my world loud.
Sep 13, 2025
Sep 13, 2025 at 9:05 AM UTC
She lived her life with an immature desire.
Dancing and singing, her face lit a room.
But like a firecracker before that boom,
many often held their breath while by her.
I remember once, while near her line of fire,
I blushed, a boy of five, from her strong fume.
Her lips spewing forth in an obscene plume,
while she alone would not hear her deafening ire.
Then I’d relay the circumspect reply,
from a confused face speaking through this child,
as my mother lit a fresh cigarette.
Rewinding the tape with her careful eye,
she watched me imitate the words she’d riled,
never showing me any sign of regret.
Nov 6, 2024
Nov 6, 2024 at 10:54 AM UTC
~
*Major blue empty:
first listen to the weather pattern;
the scaffolding remains,
but the holding songs
of color are threadbare;
simulacra of imperfection
simply swirls like seagrass,
a pointillist matrix
of rainfall rustles
gathering scene -- nothing
stands on its own initially;
but after a few localized
moments it collects
to articulate this silence,
as each sound looms and subsides
in the garden of
selective speculation.*
~
Apr 24, 2023
Apr 24, 2023 at 4:43 PM UTC
no matter how loud I scream
I still hear nothing
I can't even hear my own voice
no matter how loud I scream
Mar 31, 2023
Mar 31, 2023 at 4:58 AM UTC
I went to my friend
almost afraid to expose the need
I found as I read the book,
not knowing if he would be deaf to it.
As I spoke of my father
who was not there
to show his boy how to be a man
I recounted my losses
and the load of grief I felt.
My sadness clung to me
a heavy suit of chainmail on a dark knight.
I could feel my face
drooping in lamentation
unable to be the smiling grinning buddy
I normally brought to the room.
Seemingly unable to enter into my pain,
my friend, a man of great intellect, character and conviction,
responded only with a litany of his own.
I tried to listen but my burden
made it a mighty climb.
Now I know my pal is only human
and I am wrestling
with my self
sweating MY
deafness.
Jan 28, 2023
Jan 28, 2023 at 1:50 AM UTC
Some people erase my warm feelings for themselves by their blindness and deafness for my feelings and tell others in my absence that Spriha has changed.
Sep 29, 2020
Sep 29, 2020 at 10:26 PM UTC
Read me your words
I am yet to hear them
Knowledge to be absorbed...
Yet of the unknowns,
There's a fear within.
Sep 2, 2020
Sep 2, 2020 at 11:25 AM UTC
Social introverts and a shy extroverts.
Dyslectics grading better in spelling.
Deaf children who know more words.
People with anxiety better at selling.
Kids with ADHD who are more calm.
Autistics who can relate better.
Paralysed people able to feel their palm.
A blind person ready to read every letter.
Who could guess their equality.
Could you imagine, you can't tell 'em appart?
Who could even think of such a society.
Just look at this, humanity's piece of art!
Who could imagine I'm one of ''them''.
One alike you and the rest of this place.
For we all are a different kind of gem.
All shining in our own simple grace.
If there's a ''them'' and there's an ''us''.
But none can tell one from another.
Is there a ''them'' at all, thus.
Then why a ''them'', it's only a bother.
Aug 6, 2019
Aug 6, 2019 at 7:07 PM UTC
White
Black
Light
Dark
Soft
Loud
Calm
Chaotic
Boring
Fun
Which do you hear?
I hear none
Jan 27, 2019
Jan 27, 2019 at 5:33 PM UTC
I hear your echo in silence,
Your voice speaks to me in quiet,
With ears that hear feelings, not words,
In a heart to amplify it.
Your clearest words were not spoken,
But they resounded in my ears,
In a heart tuned to perfect pitch
Of loving feelings that it hears.
I listen to your heart beating
To know the words you have to say,
My heart understands love language
Said from a million miles away.
In despair that causes deafness,
Hope is the comfort your voice speaks,
With ears you’ve given to my heart
Your love is what my silence seeks.
Dec 16, 2018
Dec 16, 2018 at 5:21 PM UTC
"I see what you mean!"
signed the deaf lady,
to the blind man,
who replied,
"I'll pretend I didn't hear that!"
Sep 27, 2018
Sep 27, 2018 at 4:03 PM UTC
What did you expect me to say?
Surely you noticed,
I've got a cat anyway.
Love the lush velvet collar
around its throat
but why on earth
have you coloured it's coat?
Yes, I know I love lilac.
Lilac poppies are best.
Oh ****
I think you need a
hearing test!
Poetry by Kaydee.
Jul 28, 2018
Jul 28, 2018 at 4:15 PM UTC
An error as my screen fades to darkness,
My life around me disappears.
But proof of my existence is harnessed
In the organs laid in my ears.
My drums are interesting instruments
They anchor to more than my brain
I would rather hear sound so dissonant
Than spectate a silent frame.
Rejoice! in my perspective so dreary,
For my consciousness has been saved.
Language and music my theory,
In life how love is portrayed.
Apr 30, 2018
Apr 30, 2018 at 6:21 PM UTC
say cowboy.
say hot dog.
say ice cream.
say baseball.
see, the step into the sound booth is an awkward height,
about 6 inches off the ground,
and i find myself raised on a pedestal,
sealed in for you to inspect,
watching you and an audiologist
through a glass window,
watching you decide my future
as you face away from me
so i cannot read your lips
and you cannot see me shouting stop.
say airplane,
say sidewalk,
say you might hear static in your right ear
but i know i will only hear a tone,
an electronic beep going on and on and on
say conducive hearing loss say sensoneurial damage say surgery say it might be permanent this time,
like it hasn't been permanent for the last ten years,
say there's a new technique say we can fix this,
say negative impact on social life, say poor classroom performance,
say we just want what's best for you,
say try hearing aids try CIs try cued speech,
say you need to be fixed.
it's been a decade since i first entered that sound booth,
noises not echoing off these walls that take a little more from me with every test.
it's been a decade since my hearing slipped away and
i am done mourning it but i don't think you are.
persistence is a valuable trait but stop trying,
stop putting me under with an x on my right cheek so the surgeons know how to lay me out on the operating table,
stop refusing to turn on the captions because i need the practice,
stop talking to me without tapping me first,
stop screaming at me when i mishear.
i am done mourning my hearing and i don't know if i ever grieved in the first place but you are still stuck in the stage of denial,
hoping against hope for some ******* miracle.
i don't want a miracle, i don't want anything god can give me because i am not lacking, i am whole, i already am the miracle you were looking for and i don't need to be fixed.
but you don’t believe that, do you?
so the audiologist can open the heavy soundproof door but i am still trapped inside this box,
the walls swallowing my words as you decide my future for me because
no one wants to listen to those who cannot hear.
say stop sign,
say hairbrush,
say push the button when you hear the beep
and i hold it down with my thumb,
gripping the clicker like the handle of a gun
until you tell me to let go.
but i hear deserts stretching away from me,
flat sci-fi dreamscapes where there is only one sound and i can hear it too.
say tinnitus,
say psychosomatic because you don't believe that i might hear infinity where you tell me i shouldn't.
say hole in the eardrum say the surgery might have accelerated the deterioration,
say we can try again but
i gave up ten years ago and i think you should too,
and i'm here in this sound booth screaming for you to stop
but you will not look at me,
will not even attempt communication.
no one wants to listen
to those who cannot hear.
Jul 9, 2017
Jul 9, 2017 at 1:05 PM UTC
It's not easy to be me
That's a generalization true for most
We all have our battles.
But I'm so jealous
So jealous of the way you all move on
Because when I see the pain
When I see the hurt
When I see the purity of a baby's foot
My cracked heart of stone
Can't help but beat again.
With every beat those pieces crash
Clack-clack-clack
Until a fire erupts inside of me
And I can't help but
Fight.
Fight for the children playing on the slide
Giggling and screeching
So blissfully unaware of the
World they were born into...
For while they laugh and play
I know someone is out there
Crying
While the screams of a new born
Ring out into the world
The crushing silence of loss
Envelopes all the noise-
Silent screams erupt
From those who have no voice
While the rest of the world
Finds glory in their deafness
Not me.
I hear it all.
Every scream, every laugh, every word
Like a supersonic torture chamber
Until I'm paralyzed
I'd try to shut it out
But if not me then whom?
Someone has to hear.
Someone has to act.
I wouldn't trade this for the world
Because while my heart bleeds
And though my soul is crushed
At least I know I feel
At least they know that
Someone else feels the hurt
They can't hide anymore.
Someone hears them scream
But who hears me?
Jun 11, 2017
Jun 11, 2017 at 5:13 PM UTC
frogs "croaking"
in front of me, in the reeds
crickets "chirping"
behind me, in the brush
countless coyotes "yelping"
from across the lake
bass, carp surfacing
under a yellow moon
unaware its shimmering shaft’s
a magnet to my eye
and more lullaby to me,
who can yet see spectral waves
but lost cherished vibrations--like birdsong,
winsome whispers--eons ago
May 12, 2016
May 12, 2016 at 6:14 PM UTC
here’s kind of a funny story.
they knew i had hearing loss when i was eight. what followed was doctors and operations and more doctors and the funny thing is that they still don’t know why i can’t hear out of my right ear. what’s not quite as funny is how i treated it. how i thought that this was something to be ashamed of and hidden, how i thought that it was weak, somehow, to not be able to hear.
it’s hard in class, sometimes. if we’ve got some kind of discussion going and people all over the room are talking and i’ve got to turn my head, whipping around from person to person, trying to get my left ear pointed in their direction. i never make it every time so it’s always a cut, disjointed thing, the tail end of a sentence that i don’t have the context for. sometimes there’s background noise and that makes it worse. loud air conditioning or people whispering and i can’t focus, can’t hear, even when it’s just the teacher talking and i’ve gotten my left ear set up in their direction. i’d love to tell them to shut up but i’m pretty sure they think i’m aloof because sometimes when they talk to me i don’t hear them.
asking teachers for closed captions is hard. going up to them and pretty much telling them hey, i can’t hear, change your class for me, is something i don’t think i’ll ever be good at. and sometimes they don’t know what i’m talking about. sometimes they ask the class to fix it and oh god that’s embarrassing because i know it’s nothing to be ashamed of but i still am. ashamed, that is.
there are these old movies from the eighties that we watch in history class. they don’t have captions. the ones about china are my favorite because it’s like, that’s me. that’s who i could’ve been. and the movies, they’ve got these interview segments. people speaking in Chinese, their first language, and us listening. they turn down the volume on the Chinese and lay over it English translations of whatever it is they’re saying and maybe for other people that’s a good thing but for me it’s not. for me it means that the Chinese that i don’t really know but can guess at fades into this muddle of sound, English and Chinese and cheesy background music all mushed together in something that i can’t hear.
i still don’t know what they say on the school announcements and i’m done caring.
sometimes i’m sitting in the audience of the auditorium and i don’t really know what’s going on. school assemblies are the worst. rapping and fuzzy mikes and so much background noise that even if i wanted to hear the stage i wouldn’t be able to. all i can do is cover my left ear and try to ignore the faded feedback from the right. because it’s not rude if you’re not covering both ears, right?
(i can’t stand not knowing so it’s better to cut that off at the beginning. to make sure i know that i won’t be able to hear them with three-fourths of my hearing gone. it’s less disappointing, that way.)
i can hear the people i need to. it takes a while but if i know someone’s voice well enough, if i care enough to learn it, it’s easier to understand, even if i only catch an intonation of a syllable instead of a word. and they know. they know i can’t hear so they walk on my left side and i love them for it. if someone won’t walk on my left side when i ask them to i know that i won’t learn their voice.
someone tell me why it’s the twenty-first century and people still think “deaf and dumb” is a definition instead of an outdated relic. someone tell me why it’s the twenty-first century and audism runs rampant through people who would rather label us than know us. someone tell me why it’s the twenty-first century and there are still people who think deafness is an illness. that my hearing is something that should be cured. that it’s stupid, ridiculous, to be proud of a “defect.”
someone tell me why my ASL teacher didn’t stop to ask the class if someone had trouble hearing. wait, no, you don’t need to tell me. i know why. it’s because you assume hearing until you’re wrong and that’s so strange to me, because i haven’t been hearing in years and it’s not like i’m trying that hard to hide it. you’d think that someone who knows ASL would realize if one of her students had no idea what was going on.
the first thing someone asks me when they learn i’ve got hearing loss is whether i read lips. i don’t read lips. take away the sound and have me stare at a silent video and i’m helpless. but i can supplement. i can take what i’ve heard and match it up with the movement of the lips, the throat. is that an R? yeah, it is. did they say elephant? yeah, they did.
it took me a long time to tell myself that this was okay. that not all communication is verbal and how, exactly, is this an exception? maybe people think i’m strange for staring at their mouths when they speak but if they don’t know why it’s not really their business to know.
someone tell me why it took my whole life to realize that i don’t care whether i can hear or not as long as i understand the world around me.
that’s why math is my favorite class, i think. no lectures or explanations necessary. just me and the numbers and mathematical notation.
math is a class that i don’t need to hear in. and i’m most comfortable with the silence.
Feb 13, 2016
Feb 13, 2016 at 11:40 PM UTC
~~<♡>~~
my
father
sleeps
a
lot
now
*he
prefers
his
dreams*
SoulSurvivor
(C) 1/3/2016
Jan 3, 2016
Jan 3, 2016 at 2:33 PM UTC
When Dona died
The spring grasses yellowed,
Our cheeks ashen. Her hair became a little redder
In our minds. The boy and the man strained
Under the constraints
Of communication. What was the sign
For "everything will be alright"? "Fine,"
Yes, you should say, "Fine." That is better.
Better than just, "okay".
Mar 24, 2015
Mar 24, 2015 at 4:02 PM UTC
I just wish that I could be understood. Just because I can't hear, people automatically write me off as a human being, someone less than them, someone that could never be an equal, dumb, flawed, broken. because of something entirely out of my control, I can't be included. As much as I try to control things, I can't control this. Things are one sided, I make the effort to communicate but others don't want to take the challenge, waste their time or don't even want to bother. Perhaps they are afraid. I become afraid too when I encounter this time and time again. This recurrent cycle almost makes me lose my identity and want to give up hope. I don't give up though I grow weary. I count my losses of what could have been and forge on. It makes me sad to see a possible flourishing friendship, of what could be, only to have it dashed or doomed from the start. It's very difficult to be left out, to experience only a fraction of the world and I know what I'm missing out on. Should I mourn it or try to keep swimming in the abyss of it all? I struggle to find another way, a loophole or have a tiny glimpse of a world I know I can never fully be a part of. On the outside looking in. I will always give people a chance, a chance to prove me wrong and a chance to be a friend. I can see, I can feel, I can sympathize and I bleed. I can laugh, I can cry, I can love. Often times though, I'm seldom ever given a small chance just because I can't hear. That really hurts me because then what do I do?
Mar 23, 2015
Mar 23, 2015 at 2:27 AM UTC