clair083

sometimes… sometimes i am not asleep i just can’t get out of bed i lay there motionlessly and pretend that i cant hear you come in feign deadness to the sound of everyone in and out and in and out slamming the door stomping around. i’m not proud… sometimes i lie here for hours. sometimes i lie here for days. motionless. careful to breathe evenly. in out deeper not that deeply how do we even sound when we are asleep? hopefully no one can tell the difference. i know i know. more exercise. i know i know. direct sunlight shower more often wear nicer clothes go somewhere smile until i feel happy everyone gets sad sometimes. sometimes i can’t | Penn Manship S writes intersected poetry at It Sounded Funnier In My Head , you can find it by clicking here .  Copyright © 2013 by Penn Manship. Reprinted with the permission of the author.

I, Michael Scott Monje, Jr. , am granting permission in advance for anyone who wishes to reproduce this essay in any format, including but not limited to reproducing the full text on another blog, printing it as a handout for workshops, resharing on Tumblr, or any other method of resharing it. The only restrictions I place on this permission are these: that you reproduce the entire text without edits, including this statement and that my byline be included with my full name. This is an unusual thing for me to do, but this is an unusual essay. Please share it. The first time I heard the word autism was when my mom told me about the movie Rain Man. She was excited about it. I don't know if she had recently seen it in the theaters or if my parents rented it and saved it until I was in bed or what, all I remember is the fact that she was taken by the way that Dustin Hoffman pronounced "Judge Wapner." She spent days repeating it over and over to herself as she did the housewor...

Bridges and Islands: Crossing into the complexity of intersectional identification by Zach Richter In this short synthesis piece, I will briefly review the arguments of Gill (1997) and Takala (2007), culminating in an argument for neither disability essentialism nor a flight from all single-issue identity politics in general, but instead an argument in favor of multi-positionality political categories and a coalitional tactics for activism. In Carol J. Gill’s (1997) “Four types of integration in disability identity development”, a path is set out for a fabled journey of self-acceptance that many disabled people follow. Furthermore, Gill (1997) argues directly that many psychological and trauma based issues in disabled people can be remedied through moving further down this schematic of self-development. The steps take place as follows: first identification (and desire for inclusion) within larger society and the able-bodied ideal, second identifying with the generalized disability comm...