The disabled girl takes one step forward, falls back. Shrapnel forms in utero; limbs
already invaded. Mother says special. Mother says fight. Words as artillery.
Crutches like/as armor. But similes do not save
what’s under siege.
Disabled girl knows fashion isn’t distraction enough. Stare as you two step
forward, fall back. Bullet, then dress your own flesh wounds.
Disabled girl says
cleavage will not keep your enemy closer, make them
think you are a woman, capable of leadership. Or dancing.
Disabled girl takes one step forward.
Falls back onto prescriptions that do not advance.
Does not win, but hunts
an army of hemorrhages she cannot see. Synapses
fire at the dead matter of her
cells as casualty.
The premature body like/as collateral damage. My mother says remember
what does not kill us, makes us.
Natalie E. Illum is a poet, disability activist, and singer living in Washington, D.C. She is a 2017 Jenny McKean Moore Poetry Fellow and a recipient of a 2017 Artist’s Grant from the D.C. Arts Commission as well as a nonfiction editor for The Deaf Poets Society. She was a founding board member of mothertongue, a women’s open mic that lasted 15 years. She used to compete on the National Poetry Slam circuit and was the 2013 Beltway Grand Slam Champion. Her work has appeared in various publications and on NPR’s Snap Judgment.