Bred By a Hand Not Raised

I was born with a low IQ, I am a page whose text was worn through. My mind's a palimpsest, a fading script, the vital history that was skipped. I grew up hardened by sorrow's pain, bred and burdened by a hand not raised.

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Every simple word that I trace, I find they rearrange all over the place. A line of sand whose grains blow away in the cold. They drift and scatter, I watch them flee, as if they never knew how to stay free in me. I chase their meaning through a mental haze, lost in the echo of a thousand ways.

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The math and numbers could not cope, they desperately needed some scope. The logic gates swing open, wide and weak, the scaffolding of reason starts to leak. They demanded room to breathe and space to add, but they got lost in the mind I had. They plead for structure, a defining wall, but find a chasm where they only fall.

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The hands of the clock just spin around, one short, one long, without a tick tock sound. My mind comes to a stop, I begin to slow, it only settles at the part that I know.

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"What did you say?" I ask in a gasp, the birds are louder, the meaning won't grasp. It doesn't connect to that, or to this, I hear the whole, but the core I miss.

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I offer my deep apologies for who I am, my efforts feel slow, like a constant jam. Ask me where anything is with your call, the map is a mess, a dizzying sprawl. A thousand lines that lead from here to there, but none are straight, and all are caught in air. I hold the scroll but cannot read the key, I go back to where I fall, the only place I see.

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For not all value lives in speed or skill, a patient heart can find its purpose still. Though quick words vanish, and the logic sleeps, the depth of feeling that my being keeps.

~Caitlin Charlton~

A/N : I used quatrains (four-line stanzas) with a AABB rhyme scheme. Thank you so much for reading ♥️🤗🙏🏽🖤

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