The doctor said ‘She’s the wrong way round’
while rubbing on the slimy gel of the ultrasound
I’d got myself into a muddle,
Trying to reach up for a cuddle,
Butt stuck out where head should be,
Yes, my arse wanted to see the world before me,
Unfortunately, it didn’t go to plan.
‘We’ll have to do a caesarean, mam’
So my exit was VIP, royal, grand,
I flew direct from stomach to hand,
No chance I was exiting through there,
Didn’t want vagina in my hair,
And I knew it wouldn’t fit my big head and face,
I wanted to appear unscathed and with grace,
Hence my name.
Then.
I grew up.
I started to move.
I wobbled around on bowed legs of fat,
chubby arms swaying madly in the air,
causing everyone to cry and swear,
‘Oh Christ, don’t let her near that!’
Too late.
They heard a smash; mum’s favourite fine bone china plate.
Constantly banging my head like I was into heavy metal,
I was more wrecking ball, than delicate petal.
‘Oh god, it was a real mistake calling her grace’
Dad said, ‘She constantly falls on her face’
The years to come were filled with many a cry and shout,
It’s upside down, that’s the wrong way, agh it’s inside out!
Then at the age of fifteen in driving practise
around the garden, not going far
I managed to write off the car,
‘Use the break, Use the break’ they shouted ‘On the left’
‘I am, I am’
But it turned out I still couldn’t quite
distinguish my left from my right.
Later working in a clothes shop on a trial day,
I spotted the manager walking my way,
‘Sorry, I hope you don’t mind me asking but do you have a problem?’
‘A problem. Of what sort?’
‘Oh nothing, please do excuse me, I only thought…’
‘Thought what?’
‘That perhaps you might have some kind of learning disability?’
It’s just you’re finding folding that jumper particularly fiddly’
And so I was tested;
‘Umm and ahhh’ a woman said,
tilting her head,
‘Right – can you clap and walk backwards?’
She asked,
her glasses riding down her nose,
I put my hands together and reversed along the wooden floor,
but quickly fell after a manoeuvre into the cupboard door,
She nodded her head and her pen scribbled away,
‘Do you get lost?’ She asked
Yes. A lot.
‘Do you find you put your clothes on back to front’
I found her questions rather blunt.
I didn’t want to tell her that YES, YES, YES
I’m 17 and find it difficult to dress.
But I did.
My parents were called in a few days later,
She tilted her head again and shuffled papers,
‘Thanks so much for coming here,
I’m afraid Grace’s Dyspraxia is quite severe’
She handed over ‘a detailed report’
And suddenly I was in a new cohort,
I chilled in exams, with oodles of time,
More leeway in school suited me just fine,
At university I was insanely smug and kitted out with all the gear,
computer, printer and enough paper to last three years
I was then wired up with Dragon, to type when I talked,
a cool new software,
But it gave me quite a scare,
I was talking about Leibniz’s Possible World Theory,
when it started typing – it was seriously eerie
words flashed across my screen, NAZI NAZI NAZI
I let out a pathetic scream,
‘No thank you’ I said aloud, shocked to my core,
and tossed the headset onto the floor.
I didn’t read my Dyspraxia report,
well not until the other day,
words bold and italic,
just to really emphasise,
a sentence which came as quite a surprise:
Grace finds it difficult to carry out a sequence of movements.
Grace finds it difficult to carry out a sequence of movements.
Grace finds it difficult to carry out a sequence of movements.
Oh really bitch? Well, it seems like there’s nothing left to be said,
So please watch while I rhyme, stroke my stomach and pat my head.
