The neurologist tells me I’m intriguing, a specimen
to write about in her research.  She’ll change my name
of course.  It will help legions of doctors.  Tegretol
is shaped like baseball diamonds and tastes like grapes. 

After the seizure, I could not speak or type.
Day one of Tegretol I float in space.  I bump into walls.
Day two I walk up the staircase, each step a lifetime,
the old wood banister, how it rounds at the end,
a god.  

But I can’t talk in class.  I can’t read.  The sounds blur
like lights in a long exposure, like a warm sweater, 
fuzzy, white, stitched with a quick blue fox
jumping over a convulsing dog.

Rachel Mehl (she/ her) is a dyslexic poet from Bellingham, WA.  Other poems in this collection appear in Gingerbread House, Crab Creek Review, and Freeze Ray.