Overcoming the m-m-m-monster

These signs are our masonic handshakes
The little pauses, as if just the right word
is on the tip of your tongue, or
the rush, dismissing the first hard constanant
dropping aitches and dees, it's a habit now
There are other ways of coping
- humming, singing, accents -
Maybe you had other ruses

As a child you would always see the word
flashing red, halfway down a sentance
A solid stone wall of a word, a puissance of a word
And you always hit it, knowing you would
until you no longer spoke at all, save in a murmer

Alone, in the bathroom, or under the duvet
you whispered your name like an incantation
'Steven...Steven...Steven, to prove to yourself
that you could, Cursing your mother
for not calling you Aaron

Eventually, you found your own way
switching to alternative words
at the last possible moment
to fool yourself, humming an 'ahhh'
or an 'ummm' , putting on your 'stage voice'
We're in good company, you and I
Churchill, Monroe, Scatman John...