We are thrilled to share the beautiful writing created by participants of Wordplay Creative Writing. This program was facilitated and developed by Rebecca Wood and presented in partnership with Vibrant Healthcare Alliance April 2024-May 2024.
Watch our virtual reading event:
It was such a joy to work with these writers and see what came out as they played with words. This page will be a home for their work. Each writer chose pieces to publish here. Thank you for reading!
Contributors:
Cat Peever
Maverick Smith
Betsy Klotz
Jennifer Conroy
Audrey King
Amy Rae Miller
Cat Peever
Over There
I got the blind woman blues,
This I got to say
I got the blind woman blues,
You could help someone someday
If only you could say
Where OVER THERE is
Well, I can find my way around if I know where I’m starting from
I can identify people by the sound of how their footsteps drum
I can cook up a storm in my own familiar kitchen
But the reason why I’m doing all this moanin’ and bitchin’
Is cuz I CANT SEE worth a swear
Where oh bloody, bleeping where
“Over there” is.
Resilience Lives Here
Resilience lives here, in the supplements that migrate in and out of the kitchen drawers
Resilience lives in my spice rack and with the onions, ginger and garlic in the hanging basket; though often I am unable to cook
Resilience Lives here, in the messages written on the bathroom mirror and the quotes from what I have read and listened to, written all over the wall by the toilet, so I won’t forget their truth, wisdom and inspiration.
Resilience lives in the constantly updated list of weights with dates; that ebb and rise like the tides.
Resilience lives in the stacks of books contained in my Kobo reader on the bedside table and it dangles with the feathers on the dreamcatcher over my bed. It lurks in ‘Kittie’s blanket fort’ at the foot of the bed; where he can hide until he feels brave once more.
Resilience lives in the pile of Sudoku books on the shelf, that still have blank puzzles at the back where they are difficult, because I am getting better at it and maybe one day I will be able to do them too.
It lives in the clutter of broken things that need fixing and the torn or button-less things that need mending; waiting for the day when I have enough bodily control to attend to them.
Resilience lives in the walker with the white cane in a holster mount on the handles, because I have learned to walk blind with a walker and this gives me the confidence to keep on walking.
Resilience lives in the string of Tibetan bells that decorates my doorway; conferring blessings to all who enter or who dwell here, because maybe that’s just silly, but it does no harm to anyone and I love the sound of them.
But most of all, resilience lives inside me, because each time there is more bad news and I feel like I just want to give up hope, climb into a black hole and pull the hole in after me, I find a tiny spot of light in the darkness. And that tiny light re-ignites the desire to keep on carrying on until things get better once again… and they usually do, because life is really very BIG and when something gets taken away, there is still a whole lot of life left to rush in and fill that empty place and to make my heart lift in gladness, if I let it.
Yes. Resilience lives here.
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!
Maverick Smith
Disability Among the Stars
i once was a shooting star
arching across the black
burning hot and fast and
f
a
l
l
i
n
g
to explode in fragments
now I am a star, burning steadily
a light surrounded by other lights in the black
not flickering or falling or fragmenting
i want to be a nebula, birthing other stars
future lights which will shine against the black
creating constellations of possibility
About the Author:
Maverick Smith is a trans queer and disabled writer who tackles themes of equity and social justice in their writing. Their poetry and prose has been published in various anthologies and they are honoured to be included in this publication.
Betsy Klotz
Dear Walker
DEAR WALKER,
We met recently, and not because I wanted to meet you, but because I needed to. I thought our life together would start much later. I felt sad and overwhelmed by your presence; having to face you before I felt ready to.
And here you are, now a permanent part of my life. Never far from my side, your large wheels travel over the ground, and sturdy handlebars help me to continue moving through the world. Your uncomfortable seat provides me a place to sit when my legs just can’t stand any longer. You provide me with a spot to put things I can’t carry, and something sturdy to press my weight on when I’ve fallen and need help getting up off the ground. You are all black, with red balls on the break handles. I am itching to dress you up, and to make you more my own.
Walker, here’s what I need you to know, right now I have a love/hate relationship with you. You are cumbersome and bulky. I can no longer manage aspects of my life as easily as I could before I needed you, however you also provide me with stability, and safety. I’m able to function better in the world because of you, but I am saddened that I need you. I don’t want to need your help. You are just a tool, and I am learning to love you, and not feel you are a burden.
This is what happens next Walker, you and I become a package deal. Wherever I go, you come with me. We become the best of friends, rather than someone I tolerate. Please continue to support me and keep me moving through the world. I promise I will take good care of you and give you the respect you deserve. You give me independence I could not have otherwise. You give me refuge, and safekeeping. You give me peace of mind, and the courage to keep going.
Thank you, Walker, for being patient with me as I learn to love you. Thank you for not getting frustrated with me when I didn’t want to need you. Thank you for letting me figure out our relationship and learn for myself it was a full time one, and not a see you when I see you. You and me, we’re in this together now.
About the Author:
Betsy Klotz is a disabled woman who lives in Toronto. While she is relatively new to writing, it is a hobby she enjoys greatly. She uses her lived experiences to shape and inform her pieces. A city person through and through, she is happiest indoors where her world is accessible to her. You will most likely find her listening to music, scrolling social media, watching a show, crafting, writing or reading. Need a book recommendation? Betsy’s probably got one for you. A big book lover, Betsy has turned to books to fill the void that disability isolation has created, and now prefers reading to doing almost anything else.
Jennifer Conroy
Perfect
When you look at me
What do you see?
A perfect face
A perfect me
A version of a girl you think I need to be
Perfect hair, perfect eyes
If you look hard, you’d see the cracks
You’d see the lies
A perfect girl who knows just what to say
She speaks perfect words
But hardly anyone knows deep inside that she hurts
She keeps it all inside
Doesn’t want to lay her load on anyone so often she hides
Puts up a wall
Because if she’s not cautious you’ll see a painful truth
That she’s not perfect after all
Disability
I feel your eyes on me as I wheel by
I hear your words of sympathy
Your voice asking why
I turn to you with a smile
A glint in my eye
For I know that as I am, I am just fine
There used to be a time when I was hidden from the light
When doubt clouded my thoughts and I was content to be out of sight
That was then; now I choose to shine bright
My disability
Doesn’t dictate who I am, who you think I should be
In the end
I am JUST ME.
About the Author:
Jennifer Conroy got involved with Wordplay this year. Before this, she has been writing since childhood. She loves writing short stories and poetry, she even had an article published in my local paper when she was 16. Since the pandemic, she hadn’t written anything, but Wordplay and the group of friends she met encouraged her to go back to it. She is an author with a reignited imagination!
Audrey King
CONTINUITY
Sentinals … Solemn, Silent
In a vast sunlit field, standing together
A thousand ethereal orbs, fragile, soft,
translucent, lit from within … and waiting
Spring summoned you first, golden carpets
of brilliance subduing the winter weary earth
Short weeks ago it seems, you beckoned, offered, provided
Child picked posies for mom
Sustenance for food and wine
Hope for continuity
Now you are spent . . .
Your golden crowns transformed to perfect sunlit globes
Waving, gently on tall slender stalks
Seeds of love and hope within
Watching, waiting, for that quiet nudge of a gentle breeze
That lifts and carries all that you were
Weightlessly, effortlessly to other spheres of existence
THE MELTDOWN
We met many years ago. I can’t remember where or when exactly but I was attracted to you, to your softness, your contours and malleability, How easy it was to slip into your ways whenever we were together. There were no rough spots or irritation. I just wanted you with me all the time. Even now I wish I could go where you are. But regrettably I can not. You long ago disappeared from my life, and quite dramatically too!
Here’s what you need to know. You never said a nasty word, never argued or became disagreeable. You were always just there where I last left you, waiting to indulge me yet again. Oh my, you are so sorely missed.
Our last trip together was to Wickaninnish Beach on the edge of the ocean. It was freezing cold that day with a biting, frigid wind and a thunderous crashing of waves as the sun disappeared below the horizon. You did your absolute best that day to keep me warm, especially my feet, which usually suffer the most.
We spotted logs arranged in a circle around the remnants of a campfire. As soon as our fire was built there, I asked for my feet to be put up on the logs. The warmth seeping up through my shoes felt great as the fire crackled and glowed and the piney fragrant odour of wood smoke penetrated the air.
Soon a trail of thicker acrid smoke was spotted coming from the log on which we sat. “Your shoes, your shoes are melting, someone started yelling.
It was true. Alas the soles of my lovely blue shoes were melting, disappearing dramatically up in a whiff of smoke. My best companion ever was gone.
About the Author:
Some might say Audrey King is a treasure from the past, a most unlikely “still here” pre-vaccine polio survivor. As a once-upon-a-time cartoonist, artist, published author, advocate, and international speaker, she has travelled far whilst manoeuvring the many challenges of disability.
As a now retired career professional, creativity in all its abundance has re-emerged. Although aging with 70+ years of disability can be challenging putting “power to the pen” vastly enriches and rewards her everyday journey.
Amy Rae Miller
(In)Dependant
The shower used to be my solitude
I’d lose track of where my tears met the water.
Watched them blend together and disappear down the drain.
Now if they fell
They would be caught by the hands of my support worker.
New hands all the time
Curtain pulled wide
Being called wrong names and wrong genders and soaking up all the “isms” so freely spoken as if my shower floor were their podium
I’m left an unwilling audience member
Constraint by my own body.
People don’t understand the isolation that occurs when you rely on other people for the basis of your survival
People don’t understand how hard it is to not be able
To not leave your bed, or your driveway, despite how bad you just want to or need to
I fight every day for my life while simultaneously feeling like I’m watching it slip away.
I watch the seasons change and fade from the outside of my window
I watch my dreams feel swallowed
I am the kind of person who always wants to fly
Always wants to find the dance floor
I feel picked up by pleasant interactions with strangers in the coffee shop
I want to hold the hands of people I’ve yet to meet
I see beauty all around me and all that is tangible in my reality is the walls of my home
The examination tables
The home visits that fill a slot through my whole calendar
5x a week
I just want to sit at the water in the grass by myself.
Bring a notebook and a reading book and just soak it in.
I want to get there by myself when it feels good to me
I want to leave when I’m ready and not have to plan that around several people at any given time.
It’s so simple and yet it feels so unobtainable.
Love Language
They tell me being disabled can’t be a love language.
As if I do not soak it into the incense of what I give and what I get
But also as if disabled on disabled love isn’t the sweetest shit
I’ve ever felt.
Hand in hand
Pulling you in your manual with me
in my power chair
Joint supports and spoon polishing
They tell me being disabled can’t be a love language
Except inter-abled love tells me differently.
They installed hooks on the walls of their homes to support your IV medication
They call to check access barriers.
Things they have not ever quite considered
but you watch them skip no beats.
My partner gets swooned,
Gets called a saint as
They ask them questions directed for me
and they bounce that garbage right back.
They tell me being disabled can’t be a love language
but he literally knows my meds more than I do,
sorts them into days of the week boxes
Every week.
The kind of love that has kept me alive
The deepest trust I have ever felt
They show up.
Home cooked meals to your hospital bed
Place their hands on your shoulder
Even if you are fast asleep.
They don’t even care.
Project Runway repeats.
Or vice versa.
Queer-Cripped love intricacies.
My disability is a love language,
I write love poems for her in bed.
We call each other,
fall in love through a computer screen.
We cry,
Through a phone screen we hug each other
Two beds.
Two worlds apart.
Speaking in a language I have only just
given myself permission to speak and to know,
Being disabled is a love language.
About the Author:
Amy is a queer, nonbinary, poet who is multiply-disabled and chronically ill. Pulling from lived experience in their intersecting identities, Amy has spent the last 10 years both writing and performing poetry and storytelling. They just finished writing their first book called Rolling Through It – Poems about laying in hospital beds, falling in love, and doing both simultaneously.
