An arm flap and a toe walk
Signs of wrong
Because someone said so
Labels hurled
At a child acting like a child
Tears and screams
Tantrums prove he isn’t right
As if he’s the only one
Fuck . . . this . . . shit
A person is that person
Not a carbon copy
An arm flap and a toe walk
Signs of difference
Not of wrongness
Show me the perfect child
And I will prove you wrong
No child is perfect
No human is perfect
Choke on your labels
And
Fuck
This
Shit
Legends of Windemere 
Very strong and very true…our society is labeling everything and everyone, not only the medicine bottles.
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Yeah. The slightest step toward a label can slap it on a child for life. It’s ridiculous.
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It’s worse than ridiculous actually. Sometimes I think we’re heading towards Brave New World.
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Gosh, soooo true and relevant. Thank you for giving vocabulary to this.
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Thanks for commenting. Happy that people are liking this poem. Total improve to help with a bad mood.
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I follow your posts like you are talking about me sometimes. I dig what you have to say, it always resonates. Thank you for being here…. seriously!
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Thanks. 😀
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hey Charles I’m one of those labeled children…I was labeled developmentally challenged and spent grade four in a classroom with mentally handicapped children… some of this had to do with an incident from when I was a baby and stopped breathing requiring a tracheotomy and the doctors said that I had stopped breathing for long enough to cause severe brain damage. Society is quick to slap labels on what it does not understand… great awareness piece…
and for the record I think my final brain cell challenged as it may be is quite on par with everyone else…
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Thanks for sharing your story. I’d like to go into details on what prompted this, but people can probably figure things out through the poem.
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Wow Charles, what’s going on? Did I miss a post? Great poem though.
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It’s a complicated thing. I was thinking of getting some support/feedback on the RCC site because this is a bit too public.
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Oh okay. Well, hope the vent helped.
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Not so much. Just brought it all to the surface. Guess it’s a good thing I reached my 2 chapters of writing yesterday.
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Feel free to vent. I have two autistic children and one with ADHD. Totally get it. People.
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Thanks. I’m trying to vent without going into specifics because my wife still doesn’t know. I’m still not fully convinced of the verdict. There’s more, but can’t go into a public discussion.
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Email
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This is an intense poem, Charles. I hope there are options. I’m here if you need to talk.
Ellespeth
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Thanks. We’ve found a few options. Including something we were told to do that turned out to counter everything else we were told. Might be able to get out of this with more ease than we thought.
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