The first time I wore Hearing Aids

by Raymond Atrobus

https://youtu.be/5G9dy8nCbuE 

(hear Raymond reading his own work on You Tube)

The first time I wore hearing aids

Stepping out of St Bartholomew Hospital,

I heard pigeon flapping

Crowded city traffic

Avalanched my ears like never before

And if there was silence behind any doors in my brain

They’d been unhinged

 It is a miracle that anyone can think in this volume of busy

The first time I heard the bell on the bus

I kept pushing it for every stop

And it vexed the bus driver

But I was a child playing with sound

The first day at school

Everyone saw my hearing aids and asked if I was a secret agent

I said …. YES

My ears are investigators of missing sounds

And I can still hear Miss Williams taking the register

Every present syllabul of Raymond Atrobus was a silent prayer for absence

And when Dominic asked if support teachers sit with me in class because I’m stupid

I wish I’d said something smart to clarify my intelligence

I wish my ears could pick up the answers

In speech therapy I strugged with confidence

Pronouncing it Con-Fee-Der

The sound was too dense, too tuned out of frequency

In the hearing aid repair clinic the TV is always on mute

…. Or is it?

I had to turn my hearing aids off to write this because sometimes

Hearing aids make you hear everything except yourself