Metamorphosis

Every so often a new word or letter will hang on my tongue

Metamorphosis

I struggle with my M's. So instead of saying movie, 
I'll say film, which gives off the wrong idea about 
what I'm watching. B's are difficult too. Sometimes 
I'll say I live north of Denver instead of Boulder, my 
location a secret too precious to utter. P's too, and 
L's, and N's. Sometimes R’s and W’s. I never know
what letter is going to snag, so I get creative. Flip 
through a thesaurus in my mind, compose a lyric 
that points to what I want to say without actually 
saying it. Keeps me inclined towards the poetic. 
Like when I can’t say river, I’ll say a gushing stream 
of snow, which a river also is. Writing sometimes 
becomes the practice of putting pen to paper. Mother 
is the woman who birthed me. They don’t always 
come out this pretty. Once I said once a quarter 
because I couldn't say three months. Every so often 
a new word or letter will hang on my tongue, my 
mouth a chrysalis turning what once a wriggling 
hesitation into winged utterance, some brief flash 
of beauty it never imagined it could spit out. 

- Moudi Sbeity

Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on Unsplash

Growing up with speech dysfluency has undoubtedly shaped me towards poetry, expression, and the love of language and words. Though I struggled against stuttering as a kid and well into adulthood (and still do some days), I now find strength and benefit through it. Stuttering can sometimes give me a natural pause and steadiness when reading a poem, insisting on its own cadence through the lines. As Wendell Berry writes “the impeded stream is the one that sings.”