Every job application. Every form submitted.
The DMV, the dentist,
voter registration, work and school.
Disability?
Yes… but only to you.
To me, it’s a gift, my body sculpted by nature.
Not chosen, but inherited, like my hazel eyes and light skin.
Limiting?
Yes, but only to you.

To me, an opportunity to endure in silence,
then push to the front, as others coast.
The word tumbles from my tongue,
clunky, gray—
a black umbrella
bucking, breaking, tearing in the wind.
Disability should be poetic,
not wilting, not decay; but bloom.
Disabloom—like roots that conquer stone.
Not a flaw, but a flourish.

Not brokenness, but distinction.
Not deficiency, but difference.
Diffability—my movements,
a ceremonial dance of my past.

It is not binding. It is soaring,
a restless wind, a plane in flight.
Unboundity—airborne, unmoored,
freedom from your chains.
So hard to define, so difficult to capture,
So restless, so mine…
But you still ask—as if I owe you a name.
I tell you:
It is not what you think.
It is not yours to name.
It is mine to live,
mine to shape,
mine to redefine.
It’s not splintered, not less.
Not a question.
Not an apology.
Not yours at all.
Disability?

Unwritten…but never unsaid.

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Patrick G. Roland (he/him) is a writer and educator living with cystic fibrosis. He explores life’s experiences through poetry and storytelling, seeking to inspire others in the classroom and through writing. His work appears or is forthcoming in Hobart, scaffold, 3Elements, Maudlin House, Trampoline, and others.

Twitter: @pg_roland
Website: PatrickGRoland.com