A poem of how Shawn sees himself in the book Stuck in Neutral?

Answer 1

This poem is by Shawns Dad Sydeny about how HE sees Shawn not how Shawn sees himself here it is : Shawn

by Sydney McDaniel

Lindy felt the early tugs,

Her womb becoming tidal and loud,

the fetus, turning, crying out-

a tiny beast, a braying sigh.

He calls to her. He calls to her...

I dream hard the dream of knowing him,

this baby boy coming to us...

A single bird, small, leaps inside my chest,

turning to pure spirit, to pure joy as we watch , crying.

Shawn, he becomes Shawn now,

and that bird inside me wings free too,

wings, wings its way inside me.

As days become week

and the week draws into a fortnight,

Lindy's mother is holding Shawn

when she sees a movement in his eyes....

I take him into my arms,

stare into his face.

In his eyes there is a quivering,

a strange crackling.

I hold him close....

Everything that was ever going to be,

everything that was going to become,

begins a slow unraveling.

Shawn does not grow,

he stays the same. . . .

His arms and legs

are overcooked spaghetti

laced with the bones of dead birds. . . .

Behind his eyes it's blank

as fog over snow.

I say,

why is this happening to us?

Lindy shifts Shawn in her lap,

slides her fingers across his cheek,

gently as soft as breathing.

She doesn't answer.

we sit in silence

and we wait.

Inside my chest,

where my heart should be,

a ghost bird

is flying into a terrible wind,

a frozen winter wind,

and its eye is covered in ice,

and it has no voice,

and its fading out of itself,

falling and falling

Something is happening;

Lindy won't look at me,

and I can't look at myself. . . .

Words,

once real as firewood and concrete. . .

become meringue of dust.

Lindy and Shawn and I are alone,

Her mother, gone,

our friends, gone,

and I look at Lindy

and she looks at me

and there is nothing left

for either of us to see.

Months break over us.

Shawn is dead,

only he eats, breathes, defecates,

trapped inside some kind of being

that no one will ever

understand.

Shawn and I

are alone in the darkness.

Shawn and I are alone.

We are disappearing.

We are disappearing.

In sleep, voice quiet, he breathes,

hands still, in silence, slumbering.

His spirit is a feather on a quiet river. . . .

Inside me this moment changes

into something never felt before;

a flutter of feathers as two birds, falling,

pass down through a blind, silent prayer,

whispering good-bye to dreams and hope,

pass down, falling, and whispering good-bye.

We sat in that silent darkness,

I felt my baby dreaming.

His breath was Lindy and me saying good-bye.

His breath was my grandfather's breathing,

his breath was my father loving us,

his breath was my breath, we breathed as one.

Answer 2

Shawn in Stuck in Neutral sees himself as silenced and trapped, his mind awake but his body unresponsive. He is filled with thoughts and emotions that only he can experience, leading to a profound sense of isolation and longing for connection with the world around him. His perspective sheds light on the complex inner life of someone living with a severe disability.