St-t-tutter.

You speak with words tangled in knots,

they call it a st-t-tutter.

You speak with words as smooth as a chainsaw.

No one listens to what you have to say anymore.

They can’t understand y-y-you.

Too b-b-bad for them.

The words that blossom in your brain

flower on the screen.

Don’t you wish

you could fein muteness?

And write down your thoughts for the world to read?

But, kind of like the st-t-tutter

the words erupt out without your consent.

You feel the eyes on your lips as they

t-t-try to form the right words.

Never really works, though.

The words always seem to get

st-t-tuck in your throat.

If only you could have the voice

of the movie stars and musical geniuses on TV.

But you’ve never belonged onscreen.

You remember a t-t-time before the

st-t-tutter took over.

A time before the words came haltingly, like they were stuck,

and yet fast like a river, unable to stop.

S-p-ee-eech imped-di-diment.

Like a man walking on stilts.

Unnatural.

On paper, the st-t-tutter is irrelevent.

No one can judge you through the steady text.