Invisi(dis)ability

The disabled girl walks into a bar

Sorry,

the dyspraxic girl stumbles into the dojo

Sorry,

The girl magically manifests as a part of your life.

Sorry.

One of these days I’ll get that joke right.

The story is, I manage to make my way somewhere, anywhere

Without falling down.

I don’t walk funny,

My hip doesn’t pop out of place,

I make it a year without a sensei telling me i have weird legs.

I don’t stutter or forget my words or have to say

“What?”

more than three times in a single conversation.

Hilarious, right?

I’m not quite sure where the punchline lies,

but i think it’s somewhere between

getting pulled out of honors classes for speech therapy and

people expecting me to give them my seat on public transport.

Just because I’m not in a wheelchair and you can’t see a prosthesis doesn’t mean my chronic pain doesn’t affect me.

And just because it doesn’t affect you doesn’t mean you get to assume that i’m not reading your lips right now,

that I don’t cry myself to sleep most nights of the week,

Or that your crow’s feet entitle you to seeing me fall down when this train comes to a stop.

My disability is none of your business.

You don’t get to see it,

you don’t to comment on it,

but you also need to stop assuming

It’s. not. there.

I’m not skinny, so you think you get to think i don’t have one of those

“invisible problems” like CF or cancer,

But baby, you’re not educated on all the ways someone might need accomodations for life to suck a little less,

so maybe, just stop assuming i’m some punk raised without manners who wouldn’t give up their seat to an elderly person if i could make myself stand up without faceplanting right now.

My disablility might be invisible,

but I’m. Not.

And I’m tired of pretending that i am.

So if you see me sitting down on the subway,

or parking as close to the store as possible,

or riding an electric cart in walmart,

mind. your. business.

Because I’m just tryna shop.

Actually, if you see, *anyone* doing *anything* that’s maybe designed to make things easier for someone who might need that?

Say it with me this time:

Mind, your, business.

Because we’re. just trying. to live.