Reading Still Scares Me

Literature carries all there was, and maybe all there ever will be. A way for humanity to push forward—sharing sacred stories, lessons learned, and everything in between. It’s something we feel forced to do in childhood, but really, it’s something you long for with age. I loved reading, and then the system told me my early struggles with it would be the reason I’d be a failure.

It’s heavy for anyone to hear, almost impossible to confront. To be called a failure for something you can’t control is to be left adrift in a sea of those who could. As a child, I was helpless in that moment. I didn’t just consume stories; I put myself in them. It felt as though I found my niche, “loser” or not—it was me.

I loved reading, and then the system told me my early struggles with it would be the reason I’d be a failure.

My dreaded enemy was dyslexia and the “detriment” it left me at. When I was told I had it, it felt like some incurable sickness. I remember it vividly, because my apparent failure came at a point when I became more engulfed with stories. I was infatuated with narrative. Like many kids in elementary school I started making stories of my own—specifically, “war stories” and strategies I’d play out in my head and draw out in class. The internal dialogue I had created freed me from the distress I felt in other places. It became my first vice—a taste for escape.

My teacher pleaded with my mother, saying that despite my solid grades I needed to be held back. It may have felt like “looking out” but to me it was my first taste of not being good enough. 

The stories I’d read and the ones I created became less of an escape and more of a love that suddenly held a blade to my throat. My friends didn’t hear similar critiques, so I was confused. Confronting a condition you can’t even pronounce, never mind understand, is daunting for a child. At the time I couldn’t really explain the feeling, but thankfully life has since accustomed me to failure and doubt.

This quiet crisis taught me that regardless of what people say, you always have options, especially when you have a hero on your team. My mother immediately started creating a story of her own and I was the main character. It was my first taste of battle, and I had an ally capable of playing chess with the next five moves thought out in advance. 

My taste for rebellion has reared its head. She refused to be told I was a failure, and as a byproduct I knew I wouldn’t be. It became less of a fantasy and more of a personal proposal of retribution. I learned that while the world may, at times, be against you—there’s always someone ready to rally the troops. 

It was my first taste of battle, and I had an ally capable of playing chess with next five moves thought out in advance.

She refused the teacher’s recommendation, and enrolled me in reading and writing classes at our local university—the one that would house my future ambition. It wasn’t rebellion for the sake of it, but instead a proper path forward that allowed me to regain confidence in something that carried me through childhood. My lifeline was provided by a person who showed me what family really was—a fighter on your team refusing to relegate a reader at the advice of the ridiculous.

As time went on, I realized it wasn’t the teacher that was ridiculous nor was my dyslexia “do or die.” It was the symptom of a system that makes children susceptible to standards and metrics devoid of reading between the lines. The system was built to process us in black and white, but reality is full-spectrum color.

I was lucky to have my hero, and the support system she provided. It showed me that there’s always a way to succeed—even if the path is unclear. I was able to learn the lesson of never giving up even when it gets murky with odds that feel stacked against you.

Most people aren’t as lucky as me. Children across America are just like me—falling in love with the literature and the liberation it brings. They unknowingly wait to be told the same thing I was—regardless of what the grades say: you’re going to fail. My heart breaks because I know with certainty that many won’t be met with the same support system I had.

Was it really my mother’s job to find actual education to ensure I satisfied the system, or was the system designed to fail people like me by default? Looking around, the answer is quite evident. We view everything in the world as binary—including the children who come after we’re forgotten. We place a zero or one next to their name in the form of a pass or fail and the rest becomes the busy parents’ peril.

It doesn’t need to be this way. It shouldn’t be. We’re told we live in the greatest nation in the world. We live in the most advanced state society has ever seen while secretly stealing hope from those who need it most.

A fighter on your team refusing to relegate a reader at the advice of the ridiculous.

Reading became my rebellion and writing by extension became my middle finger. This story isn’t for myself; I’ll be a footnote to most. It’s for the kid in grade school right now being told the same thing I was. It’s about waking people up to how classrooms decorated with participation trophies weren’t built to nurture, but to sort and filter.

The system I endured hasn’t changed, if anything it morphed and was gutted. We cut funding from the facilities that need it most. It’s a problem that exists—one we hear about often yet do nothing to correct course. 

I’m not afraid of reading because it was once my own failure. I’m afraid that it’s still gatekept from the very people that could end up being our greatest minds. The reading that scares me is the propaganda playing on the idea that there is no solution. The reading that confirms we’re still enduring the same thinking that tried shutting me down. 

The stories that scare me are the ones we can answer but don’t. The ones that continue to plague us and those we owe everything to. Our system isn’t just inadequate—it appears to have been designed to break us. But the creators forgot that some of us learn to rewrite the script. 

Reading became my rebellion and writing, by extension, became my middle finger.

Joshua K. Burke — Reading Still Scares Me