We are thrilled to share the beautiful writing created by participants of Wordplay in Spring 2025. This program is developed by CILT and facilitated in partnership with Vibrant Community Health.
It was such a joy to work with the 7 writer participants who each created such beautiful work! Not everyone who participated chose to publish their work, but we are so pleased publish the pieces written by the participants who chose to share. Some of these poems were inspired by “I know Crips Live Here” by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. Thank you for reading!
Contributors:
Michele Gardner
Dwayne Shaw
Cat Peever
Sophie Lyons
Alicia Palma
Michele Gardner
I Know Disability Lives Here
I know struggle lives here when things are scattered all around, permeating your brain like a freight train—the madness of chaos.
I know pain lives here when small bottles are left unhidden, displayed like a tragedy about to be prevented.
I know disability lives here when you see devices placed strategically, like an operating room that is about to be used.
I know effort lives here when you see adaptations to your home and you become “like one of them,” but only in your own space.
I know resilience lives here when you go out into the world and see the disdainful faces and voices fall into the hole of ignorance, and you still survive.
I know courage lives here when you persevere in a broken world, while embracing your inner strengths and beauty.
Waiting
My mind is on overdrive as time slowly ticks by, wondering why me?
If only my wheels could carry me at lightning speed, is relief on its way?
Endlessly, driving my chair around in shared spaces with no direction, at high speed, in that moment, just like my thoughts, carefully avoiding anything that moves.
Sometimes, boredom and numbness can appear. I am in a daze of dreams as time passes with every click, scroll, comment, and like on my lifeline to the world.
All the while, anticipation of my every need to be met, on different days, on someone else’s schedule
In a lineup with other people’s needs to be met, my needs are oblivious to those who created them.
Hours pass. Exhausted, even though I’m sitting, I am aching to go home soon. My cat awaits.
About the Author:
Michele Gardner is a member of the ONDP Spadina-Fort York Riding Association Executive Board, serving as the Representative for Persons Living with Disabilities, and is a member of the ONDP Persons Living with a Disability Committee. Outside of political work, Michele is a member of the Sinai Health Equity and Accessibility Patient and Family Advisory Committee. Michele is also a published writer and has most recently had her story published in the book “Vis-able and Empowered” by Tara Geraghty-Ellis. Michele is a single mom with a physical disability who has appeared in film, theatre, and numerous documentaries and television shows about parenting with a disability, including “Accessible Media Inc.” and “Nurturing Assistance through the Direct Funding Program” at the Center for Independent Living in Toronto.
Dwayne Shaw
I Know Disability Lives Here
Home is what I make it. You can’t and shouldn’t tell me how I should live.
Deep cleaning happens every other month and that’s only if I have support.
I need to clean my dishes every Sunday, so my kitchen stays clean.
I also make sure that I clean the bathroom too because I know I should.
I do both of these on Sundays as I listen to DJ Relentless spinning online.
Listening to music every Sunday helps with body movement and mood.
This prepares me for a good week. Focusing on other concerns weekly.
I put together a get done list and a rest of today list – NOT a to-do list.
I am always close to my phone just in case I have to speak out words.
Words as thoughts or ideas that I need to figure out or come back to later.
I am someone who communicates better in written form than verbal form.
I don’t apologize for the way I communicate or how I live my life.
About the Author:
Name is Dwayne. He-Him pronouns. Lives as someone with numerous assessments, disabilities and labels, most of which are non-visible. Which doesn’t stop him from living life. He likes to write short stories. Now a published writer. He continues to be hopeful to find time to keep writing. With the hope to maintain a blog of writings and publishing his memoir within the next eight years before his 60th birthday. Also, hopeful of maintaining a blog of writing regarding 2SLGBTQ+ worldwide histories.
Cat Peever
Wet Shoes
Why yes, I do have a story about wet shoes. It started on the day of my job interview. I was just out of university and looking for my first full time job. I had worked summer jobs and part time jobs while in school. Now I want to actually start my career. I have the education, but not so much experience… yet. And I am eager to get started.
The morning of my interview, I carefully choose my wardrobe and groom myself “for success” while I practice saying my interviewer’s name, so I get it right at the interview. I give myself plenty of getting lost time, because I am incredibly talented at getting myself lost. I am giving myself generous “travel time” and also 15 minutes of “getting lost” time, just in case. I have researched my travel route, checked out how many subway stops and how many streets to cross on my way. With one last check that I am looking neat and professional and have everything I need with me, I set out.
I am nervous and this fills my body with energy. I am concentrating on feeling “confident” and in my assumption of this role of “confident person” I walk diagonally across my street instead of my usual, more careful route. I am practicing walking in a confident stride, instead of my more habitual hesitancy and I walk from the street toward the sidewalk on the other side of the road.
It is a spring morning and I take note with satisfaction that most of the snow has melted and the day is sunny and I can feel that sun on the skin of my face as I stride along.
As I confidently take that first step onto the wet sidewalk I am surprised by the absence of ground under my foot. Because I have been committing myself to this confident striding, I am powerless to arrest my descent and the next thing I know, I am standing thigh deep in shockingly frigid and muddy water.
For a second, I am paralyzed with surprise at the sudden plummet into icy water. When I break my surprised stillness, I find that I am standing in the ditch, which is full of snow melt. There are even tiny shards of frozen particles bumping into my nylon clad legs.
From the thighs down I am now soaking wet. My mind races and my skin tingles as I try to figure out what am I going to do. I have a job interview to go to! I can just see myself marching into the office with my shoes leaving muddy wet blotches behind me on their carpet. I can’t do that! I decide that I really have to go home and change.
I carefully climb out of the ditch and back onto the road and make my way home. I try to make good wardrobe choices with speed and I very carefully cross the street, in my accustomed manner and direction and this time I find the sidewalk and get myself to the bus stop without further mishap. My feet are comfortable once more in dry, neat and clean shoes.
I can’t remember about what happened at that interview now, but I learned 3 lessons that day. I learned that shortcuts are a bad idea when you are blind. I learned that overcoming adversity lends confidence, because once I had myself dried, cleaned up and redressed, I wasn’t so nervous about the
interview and I learned that to a blind person with limited residual vision, to not believe everything I see. That ditch full of dirty water, was the same colour as a wet sidewalk and so I made an erroneous assumption that lead to an avoidable accident.
Those really nice “job interview” shoes never fully recovered, but until I discarded them, every time I encountered them in my home, it reminded me of my pre job interview polar bear swim.
About the Author:
Cat Peever was born with a visual disability. Raised by wolves in the wilderness, this country kitty found herself in the city while there to get an education. She stayed for the work and had herself a really nice career, before developing another disability. With that, she had to leave work and learn how to live her life in a new way. She is grateful for the help she has received so she could learn how to do this and welcomes opportunities to manifest her creativity in whatever forms that may take… as long as they are legal!
Sophie Lyons
I know grief lives here
I know grief lives here. Dry ingredients sit untouched
expiration dates approaching, the fridge empty
the snack drawer full
I know grief lives here. Dishes piling up
in the sink, in the living room, on the bedside table. Memories
of visitors, an old reality
I know grief lives here, the scrunched up tissues
in the overflowing trash
and the ones that haven’t made it there yet
I know grief lives here. The new pack of sleeping pills
sitting on top of the empty ones, sitting atop
his old sweater I was never meant to own
I know grief lives here, my phone buzzing with
five different apps, inboxes piling up, storage running short,
I’m holding it all in my hand, unable to answer
I know grief lives here when I see the CN tower
in the distance and close up, silent
and mid conversation. My grief remembers
the visit that never happened
I know grief lives here. A poster of a footballer
hanging in the entryway from a team I’ve never watched
and a sport I don’t follow, but it honours
the day I said goodbye
knowing there’d be no more hellos
I know grief lives here when I look at us smiling,
six years old frozen in time,
unaware of how long
and short the future would feel.
About the Author:
Sophie is a queer white immigrant-settler, writer, photographer, and founder of Sick Stories. Sophie’s work primarily focuses on the intersections of disability, identity, nature, and grief. Sophie has been published in LUMINA, Spoonie Press, the BMJ, and others.
Alicia Palma
The imperfectly perfect sound of my voice
Hearing myself talk, I sound normal.
My brain tells me the words are coming out clear as clear can get.
I sound like you.
Why would I use a speech device if I had a functioning voice?
When I’m surrounded by friends and family I’m perfectly understood,
but when I decide to find my way in life,
reality hits.
People are so consumed by the world around them
they don’t take time to hear
the way I say words.
Instead, I get looks as though
I’m a beautiful freak.
The sound of my voice does not go with the physical appearance,
I know.
Confusion fills their faces.
It’s quite funny to see, let me say.
It wasn’t always that way though,
their completely lost expression used to
make me silent and shy.
There were occasions where I would get a burst of confidence
or my nerves would get the best of me and
my words would become harder to recognize.
I hear myself talk and I can’t get any clearer.
At least that’s what I’m saying in my head.
Music for the soul
Here I am, in my room listening to my favourite genres of music, old school r&b, Montell Jordan- Get It On is just finishing, and not going to lie, it brings back moments of you. Moments that won’t be forgotten and I even hold them close to my heart. You were my escape from early on, I was exactly who I wanted to be when I was with you. Your words spoke to my heart and mind. It was like you always knew what I needed to hear.
You were there through it all from my very first heartbreak at 14 to losing my dad at 25 to having to step back to find myself at 42 and everything in between. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t all sad. You were there for the best moments too, and there were plenty. From riding in the car with my ride or die heading to our hangout. Those three straight summers were epic. To falling in love to closing the door to my bedroom and just dancing while you spoke to me. Those 106 days was when I lived my best moments with AJ and Free because that’s when you were there and for two hours, I could be me. Fantasizing about the woman I felt like I wanted to be and the love I knew I deserved. And yes, as I closed my eyes as I was listening to you, I instantly knew what kind of love I wanted to find me. A sweet lady kinda love. You know, that old school r&b kinda love. With a bit of sexy love, only you, peaches n cream, I’m so into you, love me, ride wit u, and even sometimes with just be a man about it Keyshia Cole, oh you knew the words I would use if I had a voice to express those feelings. Was it worth it? A question that never got answered.
About the Author
Alicia Palma is a 45 years old woman who lives with Cerebral Palsy and has a unique speech. She also is a lover of expressing herself through creative writing. When she isn’t writing, she loves to be around friends and family, or just to be in her own space, indulging in her tv shows. Reading Urban novels is another of her favourite pass time. Her writing is based on life experiences. She wants to inspire other women like herself to find their confidence through writing.
