A poem about living with CAPD

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by pippilngstkngpr
Saturday, April 18, 2009

I sit in a  class room with other students.
We all sit in front of the teacher, while they teach us.
Everyone gets what's being said and even explains what the teacher means,
and the teacher agrees.
" Yeah, you have it right."

I sit there,
I'm either staring at them, hating that they get it.
Staring out the window in my own little world.
I'm drawing, doodling or writing poetry.
or I am listening.
And I'm feeling stupid because I don't understand.

Sometimes I watch the teachers mouth move up and down.
Actually I get nothing from it.
Uses big words I don't know or says something I don't understand.
Why can't understand and learn like the others?
Their just pushing me through the system.
That doesn't help.
I'm one of those students who learn nothing.

You don't know what it's like to walk into a classroom,
having that anxiety of lots of people.
Than sitting in the classrooms for hours of
not comprehending gibberish.
It's like going to Japan and being American.
Never taking a class of Japanese and living there.

You don't know how it is to have 5th grade vocabulary.
To try to have a conversation with someone your age.
And their using words you should know and having no idea what they mean.

Even people a couple years younger than you using words you never heard of.

It feels like I don't belong.
I don't get a lot.
It takes so long.

Someone will say something funny,
after people laugh
and then I giggle 5 minutes later cause I understand.

Someone can say I saw a cat wearing socks.
I could hear I saw a hat wearing socks.
And then you know I am laughing at something that might not be funny,
but what I heard was funny.

It sucks feeling like the odd ball.
Saying what a million times a day,
or saying you didn't hear something when someone say they said it like 10 times.

Sometimes I just wish I didn't have this learning disability.
Sometimes I wish I learned something in school.
Sometimes I am okay with it,
because out came a great artist that I am.
I might not be good verbal wise or understanding verbal words,
but I am great visually.

I am happy who I am. I just wish I could understand more.

I bet people think or think they know my learning disability isn't bad.
Maybe it's mild but to me it feels severe.
Like I understand some.
Sometimes I just say uh huh just so it seems like I am understanding,
but I am really not.

I've been on the end of someone getting mad,
I just hate when that happens.
But it stinks when someone asks you,
"So, what are your thoughts on that?"
When actually I didn't understand a word?
Than they get frustrated,
I tell them just to forget it.

I understand more in my dreams.
I guess that's the only place, I'll be able understand.
The only place I can have conversations with people who talk like me,
who have vocabulary like me.
My dreams are the place I like to be.