Sales Pitch

by Maddie Phelps

Studying advertising when you’re disabled
is a god damn mess.
An instructor asks us,
What do people want?
What projections can we create
that will finally slake their thirst?
A classmate answers,
We all just want to be normal.

I blink.
I think,
Oh. 

I’m not obtuse; I understand.
I searched for normal once.
Stumbling through a dry heat,
I smiled until my lips cracked;
I stood up straight
until my spine turned to stone;
I made eye contact
that burned sand into glass;
I spoke until words became ash,
carried by an empty desert wind.

I emerged carrying
armfuls of sand
and pilfered mannerisms.
But I did not find normal.
I did not find
a stream where I could lie
until the word autism 
felt less dirty.

And afterward,
I found little
that could scrub out the sand
from where it’d
buried itself like daggers
into my skin.

Everyone wants to be normal.
No.
I don’t.

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