Work Text:
The Invisible Wall.
The branches of Yggdrasil are swaying
As I stand on them.
The branches are as wide as a highway.
A girl in a green headscarf stands beside me,
My best friend on my other side.
He is all fancy clothes and perfectly trimmed hair.
My other friend, my only other in the world
Is standing in front of me,
Trying not to fall.
My best friend, the one beside me,
Is trying to pretend like he’s not staring at me,
But I notice.
I notice everything, everything everyone says I won’t.
I am deaf,
And I can notice everything.
I do not need to hear to survive.
I can read lips, and my friends sign fluently.
I feel good that they learned ASL just for me.
I’m loved, for the first time in my life.
I nudge my best friend, give him a rare, knowing smile.
He blushes and tears his eyes away from me,
And my heart thumps just a little harder,
Just a little quicker.
Thump, thump.
Thump, thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Midgard is below us, the heavens above.
It is hard not to be in awe,
On this dangerous, death-bringing tree.
These trembling branches are solid and firm,
Yet they sway in a breeze that I cannot hear.
Here, on trembling branches,
We are held by an invisible wall –
The one between sound and silence,
Between knowing and feeling,
Between almost and forever.
For once,
The wall doesn’t feel like a prison.
I don’t need to hear.
I can feel, I can taste, I can see.
I do not need to hear
To belong.