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SSS Sucks
N’s and M’s, P’s and Q’s, V’s and W’s
Identical twins, no difference do I see
Letters hide in neighboring words
“Stop it!” I beg “Enough!”
Their vanishing act a bitter mockery
Frustration boils inside me
The page is too bright
I want to give up, to cry out
“Read aloud” my teachers say
I take a breath,
Fear quakes inside
I look at the book, the words are a blur
“Just take it slow” I tell myself
Words fall out of my mouth with the grace
Of a drunken rhino
Listeners snicker loudly behind their hands
Blood flushes my face
I feel dizzy, I feel sick
The teacher impatiently aids my pronunciation
My eyelids remain open wide, not daring to blink
Less the words escape my sight
Blood flushes my face
I feel every eye in the room bore a hole into me
Why me? Why now? Why here?
Finally the teacher has had enough
ANother reader is chosen
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This article has 2 comments.
SSS is short for scotopic sensitivity syndrome. As far as I'm aware, its pretty unknown and it sucks. Words shift around and blink out of sight, and the white paper is like shining a flash light in my eyes. Color layovers help, I actually have color glasses--but everyone thinks they are sunglasses. I get picked on a lot for them, so I wrote this to let more people become aware of it. If more people knew about it, then people all over could be getting help for this instead of suffering in ignorance.
Just a shout out to the wonderful dears who tested me and helped me get the glasses :)