KNEE BRACE PRESS

A place for stories about chronic illness, disability, mental health, and neurodivergence.

Origins

By

Poetry found me
aching for a voice
My hair in junior-high pigtails
budding body under
pink Taurus sweatshirt
Sitting in the back
of English class
falling into quicksand
stuck in inner-city
yellow clapboard house
an only child of
fatherly abandonment

Cursed by teachers
for having imagination
Wasted on pimply boys
who couldn’t spell frustration

A soon to be orphan
never guessing
future importance of words
silent on the page
Growing to blossom
fertilized by all those
concrete sidewalks
and humid burning sun
Blooming
into wildflowers
Flaming
into pages
of confident verse

Contributor

  • A white woman with short, white hair reads a book at a microphone.

    Diane Funston lives in Marysville, CA. She began writing in adolescent angst which ultimately led her to a degree in English. Diane has been published in numerous poetry journals, including Tule Review, Synkronicity, California Quarterly, Lake Affect Magazine and others. Her first chapbook was published by Foothills Publishing in 2022. She is on the neurodivergent spectrum and is the rarest INFJ personality type.