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<pre class="wp-block-verse"><strong><em>for Austin, the autistic boy who came to my school for a term. No one understood him. I have not heard of him since.</em></strong><br> <br> this caged bird sings, in a sonorous voice<br> a long note, repeated over and over.<br> i have been listening, i have been thinking:<br> <br> this caged bird is a boy, who longed for life,<br> for love, for normality. teachers said he was arrogant,<br> that he could well hear you speak, but he won't reply you,<br> no matter what. austin was often beaten, he was not allowed<br> to cry in public, for that would mean he could make sound<br> so austin wept at the corner of the classroom, at night.<br> <br> this caged bird is a boy, who longed to get away<br> from the shackles of academic disability, so austin read voraciously,<br> yet his grades spoke of other things that needed to be done,<br> things austin couldn't do alone.<br> yet no one helped, rather he was mocked as the bookworm,<br> who couldn't bore holes through more than two leaves.<br> i couldn't help, i was naive. i tried initiating conversations<br> and got tired that austin made mono syllabic replies,<br> got fed up at the jests of my friends.<br> austin was taught like other children,<br> yet he was not treated as other children<br> <br> <br> so this caged bird sings, in a sonorous voice a long note, repeated over and over.<br> i have been listening, i have been thinking, i<br> have started singing this song in my own toad's croak<br> and tears, tears for the help that won't meet the helpless<br> keep crawling down my face. </pre>
 
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 Theophilus Femi Alawonde </a>
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THIS CAGED BIRD SINGS (a poem by Theophilus Femi Alawonde)
