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Breath & Shadow

Summer 2024 - Vol. 21, Issue 1

On Diagnosis/Nine Years

written by

Imogen McHugh

Turns out I've got this

condition called HSD

(sounds like the name

of a construction firm)

So I am forced to consider

that this is not my fault

and in the black and white

red all-over newspaper

of my mind I review every

instance of self blame

and all of the ways that

I have punished my body

for its weakness and

dragged my poor carcass

to the brink -- to think

that I came from the mold

cracked already is not much

comfort.


                          Hypermobility

spectrum disorder doesn't

sound much like anything

so I start calling myself

Crustacean Girl hoping

that putting on a new shell

a new home new furniture

clicking my claws in the air

dancing sideways etcetera

will be healing but by now

I'm afraid I don't have much

faith in what the sea can do.


Good thing Crustacean Girl

doesn't need faith to survive.

Imogen McHugh is a young disabled poet from Norwich, England. She has an MA in poetry and one book of poems currently published: A King’s Bones, which came out in 2022. She loves crochet, poetry, dogs, and did she mention poetry? Find out more on her site!

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