Repetition

I repeat myself a lot, sometimes. Especially if you disagree. The clarity and correctness of my thought is self evident, clearly you didn't hear me, goes the logic. They must not have heard me, not clearly.

As a child, I mumbled a lot. My mother asked me to repeat myself regularly. Important things, especially, never came out right, not the first time. I was never a full blown lisper but I had enough trouble speaking that eventually I ended up meeting with a speech therapist, just as a consultation, once in second grade. It didn't turn into a lasting relationship.

I loathed repeating things. It was embarrassing. Shameful, to be told to speak up. When I finally did speak out, my words never seemed to move the mountains that I hoped they would. Especially after all that effort.

I've tried to explain this to myself, why it happens. I've concluded that I get caught in my head. A screen goes up between my thoughts and the world, and I am trapped behind it. You, on the other side, get two copies of the same, strange, frizzly energetic message, with garbled contents.

CommErr. (-1)