by Francies Stephenson
Yes, English is my first language
I promise you I wrote all these words
The tip of my tongue
Just comes out a little further
Than it should
I’ve thought over a million times
About corrective surgery
Just mark, slice, & stitch my tongue here
But I don’t want to do that anymore
For the ones with
Lazy tongues
Stutters
Lisps
Underbites and
Overbites
Open your mouths wider
And vocalize those
Dentalised,
Lateralised,
Palatalized,
And nasalized sounds
Orchestrate the World’s Greatest
Speech Impediment Symphony
Let’s make it fashionable
To have difficultly pronouncing words with
The letters
S, T, D, Z, R, H, and B
Let’s stop silencing our voices
Out of fear of embarrassment
Let’s reject anyone who
Corrects our mispronunciation
Let’s turn up on anyone who
Mocks us
Let’s write bestseller children stories and
Young adult novels where
Protagonists have speech impediments
Let’s hashtag our speech impediments
I’ll start first #lisp202
That’s Lisp (202) for my speech impediment & my D.C. area code
Let’s make professions out of having speech impediments
Oooh, and it doesn’t stop there
Let’s make an exclusive fan club and name it
Speech Impediments Only!
Yes, English is my first language
I promise you I wrote all these words
The tip of my tongue
Just comes out a little further
Than it should
I’ve thought over a million times
About corrective surgery
Just mark, slice, & stitch my tongue here
But I don’t want to do that anymore
For the ones with
Lazy tongues
Stutters
Lisps
Underbites and
Overbites
Open your mouths wider
And vocalize those
Dentalised,
Lateralised,
Palatalized,
And nasalized sounds
Orchestrate the World’s Greatest
Speech Impediment Symphony
Let’s make it fashionable
To have difficultly pronouncing words with
The letters
S, T, D, Z, R, H, and B
Let’s stop silencing our voices
Out of fear of embarrassment
Let’s reject anyone who
Corrects our mispronunciation
Let’s turn up on anyone who
Mocks us
Let’s write bestseller children stories and
Young adult novels where
Protagonists have speech impediments
Let’s hashtag our speech impediments
I’ll start first #lisp202
That’s Lisp (202) for my speech impediment & my D.C. area code
Let’s make professions out of having speech impediments
Oooh, and it doesn’t stop there
Let’s make an exclusive fan club and name it
Speech Impediments Only!
