Life With a Lisp

Life with a lisp is speech classes and people laughing at the words you say. It’s staying quiet to avoid people repeating your words and laughing. It’s people asking if you have or ever had braces when you never have or an overbite when your teeth are just fine.

It’s people asking you to say ‘Sally sells seashells’ and ‘six slippery snails slid’ so they can get a laugh. It’s never calling Sarah, Sierra, or Sam by their names because you don’t want to disrespect your friend who puts up with you with that drastic letter of the alphabet. 

It’s giving an oral report and losing points because you didn’t speak clearly enough. It’s being told you’re speaking wrong and feeling like you didn’t grow up right because most children with lisps grow out of it. 

But life with a lisp is giving the perfect snake impersonation. It’s letting your mind wonder and create because rather than speaking, you go on an adventure through your thoughts. 

Having a lisp means finding special people who find it cute and never laugh at you when you say ‘someone said I smell like sunflowers’ or ‘sleep keeps us from seeing stars’. It’s being able to figure out which friends to keep close and who’s best left behind.

Life with a lisp has hard times and painful moments but it means you’re different and special. The way you speak doesn’t have to be a speech impediment. How you speak can sound however you want it to be. It’s your voice, your accent, and you can change it however you’d like. 

It’s your voice and it can sound however you want it to be.