DislexicPoet Notebook
-
When Numbness Becomes Survival
I Had to Shut It All Off There’s a version of survival people don’t talk about enough. Not the loud kind. Not the kind that looks strong or inspiring from the outside. The quiet kind. The kind where you don’t fight back — You shut down. This poem came from a place where feeling everything…
-
The Same Fight, Different Battle
I’m 17 years clean and sober. People hear that and think the fight is over. Like there’s a finish line. Like one day it all just… stops. It doesn’t. The fight didn’t end — It changed shape. For years, the drugs and drink took everything from me. I was drowning in self-surrender, self-loathing, self-sabotage… all…
-
I Don’t Write Soft — And That’s Okay
There’s this quiet expectation in poetry That softness equals beauty. That if you write gently, You write well. I don’t agree. Because the world I’ve lived in Has never been soft. It’s been sharp. Unpredictable. Unforgiving. And my writing reflects that. I don’t sit down Trying to sound pretty. I write what it feels like.…
-
🪶 Why I Used a Word That Doesn’t Exist
I used a word that isn’t in the dictionary — “ortisized” — on purpose. Because sometimes, real experiences don’t have real words. Language is built to describe the world in neat, defined ways. But trauma isn’t neat. It doesn’t follow rules. It doesn’t sit inside clean definitions. So why should my words? “Ortisized” is not…
-
Loss
Blog -Loss My spoken-word piece about loss, alongside Farewell Brother, comes from a place I can’t dress up or soften. This isn’t imagined pain. This is lived. The loss is deep — Built from years of a bond that was unbreakable, Full of sibling connection, The kind that doesn’t need explaining Because it was simply…
-
The Little Bird Collection
Some poems come from stormy places. Others arrive quietly. The Little Bird Collection grew from a different space in my writing — a quieter, more fragile emotional landscape. These poems explore trust, closeness, and the delicate moments where connection becomes possible again. If Fractured Mind speaks about the internal battles we carry, Little Bird explores…
-
We Don’t Heal — We Manage
I wrote this poem because I’m tired of hearing people say, “I’m healed.” Healed from what? Some things cannot be undone. What happened, happened. The body remembers. The nervous system remembers. The mind remembers — even when we wish it wouldn’t. Every wound leaves a scar. Yes, scars fade. But they are never completely erased.…
-
When I Wrote Grief
When I wrote Grief, I wasn’t trying to be poetic. I was trying to be honest about how grief has lived inside me over the years. I have lost lovers, a father, siblings, and friends, and I have often struggled to articulate what that loss felt like beyond the expected language of sadness. For me,…
-
How Poetry Shaped My Inner World
By Natasha C. Akinfolarin Before I understood the word dyslexia, Before I understood trauma, Before I understood survival — I understood poetry. Poetry was the first place my mind made sense. The world outside me often felt loud, fast, and misaligned. But inside a poem, everything slowed down. Words didn’t have to march in straight…
-
Writing with Dyslexia – This Is My Crown
I’ve been misunderstood most of my life because of dyslexia. Words don’t line up neatly for me. They move. They shift. They blur. But poetry is where they settle. This piece isn’t about weakness. It’s about learning to write inside the storm — And owning it. Dyslexic / Dyslexia They said I was different And…