04/19/2026
We are blessed that Glenn can speak. Sometimes his peach is a little different; his voice not as strong but the stone didn’t affect his speech. For those whose speech is “broken” due to stroke.
WE HEAR YOU!!
Aphasia shouts
Before you read this poem, I want to try to tell you what it feels like to live inside it.
In my mind, words are not broken. They move freely, clearly, almost beautifully. Sentences form the way they always did smooth, complete, full of meaning. I know exactly what I want to say. I can hear it. I can feel it. It’s all there.It is quick fluid I almost want to say beautiful in their essence 
But somewhere between my mind and my mouth, something changes.
The words don’t come out the same way they exist inside me. They arrive jagged, slowed, tangled or sometimes they don’t arrive at all. What feels whole in my mind can sound fractured in the world. And that gaps between knowing and saying is where the frustration lives.
People often see the outside: the pauses, the broken rhythm, the struggle. What they don’t see is the quiet fullness underneath. The language is still there. The thoughts are still alive. They just don’t travel easily anymore.
So I find myself explaining this, again and again. Trying to help others understand that aphasia is not the absence of words, but the difficulty of releasing them. It’s not emptiness it’s interruption and often accompanied by a difficult hard harsh presentation and difficult delivery . 
This poem comes from that place.
It is not just about silence, but about the sharp edges of trying to speak. About how words can feel like splinters when they won’t form the way they should. About the raw truth of expression when the usual pathways are gone.
If the lines feel broken, that is because sometimes speech feels that way too.
But inside, the meaning is still pristine and fluid .
Aphasia
Where voices break
and words become splinters,
my tongue’s caught in a raw,
uncut scream.
Silence bleeds
shattered syllables on cracked pavement,
each unsaid word
a brutal echo of lost meaning.
I tear away the layers of facade,
stripping down to the jagged truth,
where sweet words died, impaled
and only the raw jugged remnants remain.
By Yvonne Kent Pateras
Tom & Salud’s Real Life Re-doStroke Support GROUPStrive For Greatness-Let’s Talk StrokeInspirational quotesPoems in Speech Live
