“Observing the joyful autonomy, freedom, fun and intimacy of my niece and her daughter, took me back to when I was the one riding and carrying my niece in the child seat as we sang.”
Amanda Young BA Art and Design Practise, currently studying MA Illustration. Her work aims to make an emotional connection with the viewer, giving them a sense of time and a place. Instagram: @amandayoungart
Things I Can Never Teach My Daughter Poetry by Audrey T. Carroll
CW: Stigma, Strong Language
how to walk without a cane / how to balance a bike / how to swim beyond bare necessities / how to paraglide / how to take shit from people who don’t even know you / how to take shit from people who do know you, but apparently don’t know you well enough / how to tell from first glance if someone is going to ruin your day / how to ignore people who stare when you have cane in one hand, baby in the other / how to find forgiveness in your heart when you’ve been pushed too far / how to do calculus / anything about physics / how to cure chronicity / how to perform like a circus clown to entertain those who would cast dispersions for anything less than a brightly painted smile / how to understand people who think they know it all / why some people don’t think keeping quiet is an option / how to make major life choices based on a random internet man’s opinion, typed in ten seconds or less / how to be abled / how to be neurotypical / how to be the perfect little soldier bodymind always / how to shrink / how to shut up / how to do the things that would be easier because some neurotypical chucklefuck declared it so / how to give up / how to give in / how to quit the world / how to ask for less / how to adjust to toxic air / how to be cruel for cruelty’s sake / how to despair
What I can teach my daughter?
How to goddamn survive.
Audrey T. Carroll is the author of What Blooms in the Dark (ELJ Editions, 2024), Parts of Speech: A Disabled Dictionary (Alien Buddha, 2023), and In My Next Queer Life, I Want to Be (kith books, 2023). Instagram: @AudreyTCarroll & X: @AudreyTCarroll http://AudreyTCarrollWrites.weebly.com