la la la

•∞•

She cannot hear the words
that come out of your mouth,
and you tell her she should be
ashamed of not understanding
the vibrations slipping
through your unholy lips,
as if it is her sin for not understanding
instead of you for speaking at all.

[lalalalalalalala.]

She wants to be normal,
and you scoff and think, of course,
what handicapped child doesn't?
She'd snarl back at you if it wasn't true.
She's incapable, isn't she,
not being able to do what
the other children can do?
Only because she does not learn like you do,
does not understand like you do,
and that must make her less,
for the only holes
in her life do not allow anything in.

[lalalalalalalala.]

She is crying,
and she wishes so awfully to
hear herself make these whimpers,
feel engaged with herself because
she has spent her entire life
feeling so disconnected,
a circuit that the telephone
wires just won't stream to;
so she hisses into the room,
screams until her throat is raw,
because she can't hear herself,
why should anyone else?

[lalalalalalalala.]

She covers herself,
a fetal ball trying to slap
the colour back into her eyes,
because she doesn't get the language,
feels so foreign and alien,
so busy the with hands pressed against her ears,
she forgets about the ones grasping her throat.

[lalalalalalalala.]

She wants more than the drums,
she wants the cymbals crash and the piano
screech off-key,
listen to the guitar strings rumble and the
singer sing, but when she sings,
there is no music to dance to;
her feet do not have a consistent beat
and neither does the harmony of her life,
because how will she know her cues?

[lalalalalalalala.]

Now, the humming [the lalala's]
do not make her ashamed;
she does not hear the trumpets blare
or the coffee shop ding,
but she can hear the world cheering
her on for listening anyways,
feel their energy pulse unlike the
dead drums in her head,
and she decides she is going to sing today,
realizing that while she might be deaf,
someone out there might hear her and dance,
and that is all she needs to understand.