Three poems from a "cycle" I'm currently working on; I expect the finished cycle to have five pieces, akin to acts in a play. These are the three I've written so far:

The Monster Challenges

I. THE MAP-MAKER

You stand there, with my file in your hand:
A long white coat beneath fluorescent light.
Your voice is measured, your expression, bland
To thinly veil the arrogance of Might.
With scientific words, you speak your part;
Your glance betrays a superstitious heart.

As though I were not even in the room
(And near enough to catch stale coffee breath),
You lay out (for my mother) all the doom
Of raising such a daughter so bereft.
For I will never walk as humans can:
Upon two legs, and tall, across the Earth.
With crutch tips as my hooves, I'll cross each span
In trotting gait, because of star-crossed birth.
With practiced stroke and swiftly moving pen
(Just as you've done with other children's lives),
You mark me down as something less than "Man."
To fit me to a list that you've contrived.
You circumscribe my life in dark blue ink.
My flesh and mind are mapped (or so you think).


II. THE ORDER OF THINGS

The day is warm, the playful breeze is light;
The sun (just like a lover at the gate)
Has called the flowers out -- and you, as well --
So even mundane tasks are pleasant things.
And then, you see the shadow in the crowd:
A monster in the corner of your eye.

An insult made of flesh and bone -- obscene!
Far worse than any word or gesture, this:
Audacity in daring to exist
Denying everything you've learned is true.
And you are Good. You've learned what elders taught.
About what makes a Man, and makes a Beast,
And how to tell an Adult from a Child,
And how to keep your own place in the world.
The monster in the crowd is gone, although
The shadow that it cast? It lingers, still --
It's lodged there, in the corner of your thoughts:
A seed that's far too dangerous to sprout.
But you are Good, accept this as a Test,
Enclose what's wrong in pity, and move on.

III. ANXIETY


Protected from the mainstream's quickened pace,
We're gathered here like flotsom in the weeds
United just by coming to this place:
"The Campus Registry for Special Needs"
As different from each other as from those
Who tell us where to sign, and where to go.

We know that we are lucky to be here,
And neither locked away, nor even dead.
And yet, in spite of Love, we still have Fear:
The knowledge: "I'm a monster" in our heads.
We're set apart, like coins in some machine --
Been counted, sorted, "valued," all our lives.
We've felt the stares of pity: cold and keen,
And yet, the pity rises in our eyes.
For we, as well, have learned what elders taught
On how to know an Adult from a Child,
So our identities are fragile -- caught
Between what's in our dreams and what's been filed.
We wait together in this quiet hall;
We glance. But do we see the Truth... at all?

---
I'm also making a series of videos of me reading them aloud (with text-on-screen). Here's Map-Maker and The Order of Things.

...I've yet to decide on an illustrative image for the third piece... a hallway just seems too vague.