I work with children with disabilities, and currently reading a book about Autism. A quote from the book inspired me to write this:

Autism




Motionless,
He speaks millions of words
Without a single sound



This “fantastic ballet”
Studying tiny facets,
Interactions,
Pieces of a puzzle
We can only dream
Be simplified.



Your presence is not known
Until a tap, note, or bounce-
Slides across the window.



The door,
Locked so tight
So dark
So strange.
A sparkler on the fourth of July
Lights the way through
A keyhole



But you can’t get in.

alcohol

Pale pink hues,

The glass carves tear drops.

Spin the bottle.

Feel it flowing in her veins.

Three times more,

waiting for the release.

She hits the floor.

Wishing she could remember

The words,

Drifting

Above her mind.

Like a marionette

He lifts her limbs.

Dancing,

The vibration drains her.

All she remembers

Is an empty glass

standing on the table.

"It's kind of like walking out a door to discover it's a window."
-Conor Orbrest

You’re past the expiration date

She said.

I couldn’t figure out what she meant

The way her lips moved like string cheese

Falling as each

Flappy

word

fell.

She crossed her eyes

Like reversing time.

Festering,

Her blinks could stop traffic.

If only she could stop.

Maybe then,

I would understand the depth of her words.

It grew cold.

My head slowed down.

I could see her peeling layers.

Saran wrap,

Stretched upon a snowy sky

Pale with green.

A drop in the sink.

She reached for me,

in the space

that had become frozen.

For a moment

I understood the silence.

On the pavement

The teddy grahams are staring at me.

Their eyes

Empty

Crushed between the pavement

So frivolously scattered

Like ghosts,

Hopeless carbs

Not digested

Or loved

Taken body

And soul.

Crumbs,

Laid before the sun

Becoming sand-

Like the playground…

Used and abused

Pieces of time.

Time…

You can see it

Flickering

Lost particles

Reaching…

Into your shoes

Death is a carnation.

The smell follows you

Like a funeral procession.

Wafting fragrances of memories

You no longer wish to hold.

Sometimes,

I don’t.

I push it away.

Yet the bouquets rain down.

A sequence of trap doors,

These unforgiving eye

Swallowing

Me

A priest bows his head.

I WASH AWAY THE SINS OF THIS WORLD

I try to imagine my tears as holy.

Water,

Flooding my face

Just as jesus would have wanted.

But this does not bring life back.

A carnation grows,

Dies,

And disintegrates.

A weed pulled too early-

Too fast-

Too soon.

And the smell will haunt me

No matter how many tears I cry.

"No man is sane who does not know how to be insane on the proper occasions. "




"No emotion, any more than a wave, can long retain its own individual form."


by Henry Ward Beecher

Dialect

A process of speech

On the tongue,

And teeth.

Awkward,

As I dream of languages-

Conversations,

And places

I have never seen.

Words follow,

Like notes.

Cars in the night sky..

I cant’ catch them.

Throats shooting

Vibrations,

Feels like possession.

Controlling,

Spinning,

Sensation.

My mind tells me that

I cannot let go.

Beauty in words.

Scene kids

I can not sing without the medicine

The voice of un-logic

As the spandex of my pants

Wane upon my emotional state of mind.

I collapse within myself,

Aching upon the memories

Like footprints scaled on my back.

I will cry-

In melodramatic tone

Like my black shoes

Bouncing on the floor.

I want you to sing for me

Feed the IV of sorrow

So I can live with this medicine

Of irony

Printed on a tightly fitted

T-shirt.

Sing the sorrow,

Bleed American,

You have stolen my heart…

With your hair.

If you dream, does it make it real?

Glass.

Focus upon the images-

Red lines

Following roads like cars

Swerving string

Destined into knots.

A map.

Laid on a recycled edge of

Pillows.

Like a lullaby

Soft, light, and

Evocative.

Filters the sand

Through empty rooms

Colliding –

With the clouds.

We come from bubbles.

Thoughts left behind

Each eyelid

Spending a lifetime

Between Freud’s imagination,

And the lines of a book.

Attachment

We are a stranger to abandonment

Lost within a flock of sheep

She cannot hold us,

Drag us,

Find us-

Untie us within ourselves.

She pokes us

The rod is hard against our naïve skin

Breaking

Trying to resist

The linking chains

Built with inspiration,

Love,

Gratitude.

The branches break

Like a crown of braids

Unlatched upon our heads.

Eyes,

Sharp as rats

Dissolve upon release.

These guided crystals

Trying to be put back together,

Lost in imaginary lines…

Light becomes dark,

Shadows are faceless demons

And once again,

We are attached.