Sensory Processing Disorder Awareness Month

October is Sensory Processing Disorder Awareness Month! So in honor of this, I wrote a poem about my experience with sensory processing disorder. I wrote a poem for my poetry class and it is a Villanelle as well as an ekfrastic poem. For those of you who don't know an ekfrastic poem is a poem that is inspired by artwork. The picture that inspired this poem is the paining "Frägt Sich" by Paul Klee because the look on the child's face in the painting reminded me of the look I have seen on my own face in so many pictures of myself as I child. So below is the poem along with the painting that inspired it placed along side a picture of myself as a child with "the look" that is described in the poem. 

Exit

The look on the child’s face is one I know.
It’s the look of when my head is filled with bumble bees.
It’s the look of when I can’t escape my own body.

It’s in all of my family albums, that look.
It lives behind my eyes, waiting, waiting.
The look on the child’s face is one I know.

My eyes freeze over like popsicles
in the blue of winter.
It’s the look of when I can’t escape my own body.

My muscles stiffen and the voices around me
are put in a blender with thick ice cream.
The look on the child’s face is one I know.

My skin is suddenly two sizes two small
as I am wrapped in the sour itch of woolen socks.
It’ the look of when I can’t escape my own body.

All I can do is read the exit sign over and over again
until my lips are sore from mouthing the words.
The look on the child’s face is one I know.