I am so tired
Of swinging from the vines
Of mismatched emotions
Until I,
Not unlike Tarzan,
Collide with the tree trunk
And remember why
I was not given wings in the first place.

I wish *** was as simple as your mouth on my skin,
As the mountains of knees and valleys of hips,
The friction of your body against mine.
I wish *** was as free as the movement of your hands
Strumming my body to this new and unalienable tune.
I wish that *** had only ever been how it was in that moment,
Raw and sweet,
Approaching the crescendo with the safety of your trust,
Teetering on the edge of the precipice,
****** feeling not like the destination but part of the journey.
I wish *** was not my haunted house,
That I did not have to work so hard to stay on the front lawn,
Leave the demons inside to be exorcised.
I wish my memories were all lamplit and rain on the windowpanes
Of the backseat of your car,
Huddled in the blanket fort you made,
Tenderness.
I wish I could say my previous partners all cared whether their beds felt like
Silk to my emotions,
Not sandpaper to my fight or flight,
Grating on the nerves as I tried desperately to lay still.
Shhh, little girl, anything that happens in your silence does not exist in the morning.
You will not exist in the morning.
That version of you, so young and naïve at 19, will no longer have a name when the sun rises,
Washed like the blood and sweat and his calling card from your skin,
Washed from your mouth like the taste of the alcohol from his breath
As it hangs above you with the realization he has driven with you drunk,
Lost like the innocence as his mouth woke you before he entered unwelcomed,
And you cannot say “no,”
The scream frozen to your lips like the snow on the ground that December,
Your psyche the balloon floating on the horizon,
Pain the only anchor to this moment,
Gone like the idea that you could ever be clean,
The bite marks faded but his hand prints still linger on my nightmares,
The way he used *** the same as the sword wedged between the box spring and mattress,
Weapon.
*** should be beautiful,
The symphony of your skin taste of you on my lips,
The sounds of your climbing ever higher.
I want *** to be the Garden of Eden,
So comfortable we have forgotten we are not clothed,
Lost in the pleasure of our existence,
But even the Garden of Eden has a snake.
I wish that *** was not my haunted house,
Not a list of landmines longer than my forearm,
And though I have spent a year now opening the curtains, clearing the dust, and airing out the closets,
Sometimes I still ask you to please, leave the light on when we sleep.
Sometimes I can still hear the door closing with no hand behind it and acidic “You’re one hot *****.”
But you have reminded me why I fell in love with *** in the first place,
As a thread sewn between two people,
A connection of beings,
A safe place of exploration and expression.
I don’t always have the words to tell you what it means to me
That you honor both my love of *** and the haunted parts of it,
Create safety for me in the sheets,
But as we lay in the darkness,
Skin to skin,
“Thank you” will have to be enough.

On the hard days,
The sad days,
The I miss you days,
Please come snuggle days,
On the days when emotions are more mountain and less mole hill,
More swing and less steady,
On the days when you gave your best and still felt short,
I am here,
Rooting for you!
You are always enough
Exactly as you are!

Sometimes dreaming is my escape,
But others
There is no escape from dreaming.

Emotions soak up my vocabulary
With their spongy fibers,
Porous and clinging to my syllables
As if they were not mine to possess in the first place.
Feelings are like dragons,
Hoarding my words like gold.
I am hyper-verbal and hyper-lexic,
So many sentiments and letters to call upon,
But they are always out of order when
I want to tell you "I Love You!"
I say, "Please let me know you got home safe,"
Instead.

Sometimes life gives you lemons.
Sometimes life gives you your one and only
Partnered ****** with your
******.
And sometimes,
Sometimes,
I don't know what to do with that,
Especially when I want so badly
To show my new lover
What she does to me.

I have a memory that kills me
Like shards of glass sliding through my atrium,
Undetectable until it has ripped an
Irreparable hole in my heart.
His arm is tightened around my neck,
Pressure behind,
Pulling me to him,
My fear thicker than the air I could not breathe.
And then it was over,
Over like the red and sweat of my face
As the oxygen rushed back in.
Therapist says it was not an accident.
In 30 seconds he had tested me.
I was controllable.
Pass or fail
Depends on who you ask.

Could mean brushing my hair
Or you combing my emotions for entry points.
Either way,
Untangling the knots
HURTS.

My biggest hope
Is that one day,
I won't jump every time the door opens,
Hoping it's not you walking in.

You are a symphony of skin,
Perfect harmony of two souls.
You are the quarter rest of skipped heartbeats,
Electric run of mind,
Thoughts cascading
Like 16th notes descending the treble clef.
You are the forbidden crescendo,
Pulse rising to the tune of lips melded together.
You are my favorite melody,
Wild, unique, so familiar and yet new,
Playing in my mind on repeat.

I don't think I'll ever have words
For how much I miss you this time of year,
For how painful it is to have lost you,
Or how grateful I am to have known you.
I am always searching in the darkness
For a sentiment that carries enough weight
To say how sorry I am you did not think your absence would be missed.
If anything, I miss you a little more every day.

Yes,
I knew it was coming.
No,
I wasn't ready.

Dear friends,
Now I must ask a favor.
A poetry contest is under way,
$100 dollars worth of books at stake,
The entry?
A poem about that for which I am grateful.
This means a lot,
Oh, Nerd I am!
Please follow this link and vote:
https://woobox.com/cr2p7k/gallery/IDjHt_wy23E
My deepest gratitude you would have!

It seemed like the world would go on forever,
Stretching past the horizon
As his mouth formed the words
"You have Bipolar disorder."
In that moment,
The air froze,
And time stopped.
Suddenly the atoms were abuzz again.
I knew
He was right.

And then the brain chemist spilled
An entire bottle of hypomania
Into the *** of depression.
Hell has many names.

My greatest wish
Is that one day someone will love me,
Not for what I can give them,
But because I have intrinsic value myself.
My greatest wish is that one day
My story will not be too much
But just the right amount
Of ME.

The moment she says,
"Me too,"
The air evaporates from my chest.
My shoulders slump.
The weariness eases.
Sometimes connection
Is the best medicine.
I tell her she's found a friend in me.

Sometimes,
I see the image of you in your white night gown,
Back at rigid attention as you binge watched
The same TV show for the second time that week,
So little life in you despite your posture.
I'm reminded of that terrible nagging feeling
That I really should turn around and walk back in,
Say something new and better,
Hug you tighter,
But I am late to the airport,
So I don't.
A month and a half later,
You were gone.
How I really wish
I'd missed my plane that day.

Death is not pretty.
Death is not brave,
Death is not freedom
Or grace
Or clarity
Or glorious.
Death is lonely,
Undignified,  
And vastly disappointing.
I do not recommend you try it.

Them:
"You don't look Autistic."
"Wow, you must be really high functioning!"
"My friend has kids with Autism, and you don't behave anything like them."
Me:
"Thanks,
The years of bullying and abuse really paid off.
I finally learned never to display my vulnerabilites.
I learnt that others would be ashamed or uncomfortable of my differences,
Try to take advantage of my disability.
I suppose I should thank all those who thought it sport to hurt me,
I now internalize, minimize, conceal
Every difficulty.
I have been taught to sacrifice my own health and well being
For the sake of others ' needs to remain oblivious and prejudiced.
Thank you for reminding me that
All that hardwork and pain was worth it for you,
Who can operate in this public space
Unburdened by my challenges,
Oblivious to my suffering.
As a child,
My skills were less finely honed.
I had not yet developed the craft of invisibility.
One might have guessed me Autistic,
But the assumption was more often
Some combination of naughty and lazy.
Don't pretend to have sympathy for Autistic children when a comment
Clearly shows it wasn't there.
Let's be clear, too.
High function means highly camouflaged,
Easily forgotten,
Lost under the cruelty of others.
It does not mean low difficulty."

I am the pit viper of poetry.
Syllables slam where ignorance lies,
The sound of education
Like fire,
How to lower an ego and raise up humanity.
I am both Lover and Fighter,
Medic and Boxer,
Words like a balm
Designed to soothe the suffering of others.
All pain is shared, easier to bear together,
And yet,
I reserve a specific set of sharp syllabic power
When it comes to defiance of empathic deficiency.
My words will stop a heart in a poet attack,
Locate the seams and examine the crack
To expose what is wrong with society,
Foster a sense of compassionate understanding.
And then, with gentleness,
I invite them to join me.
As a poet,
I have a responsibility to illuminate both the beautiful and
Ugly,
Resuscitate long buried emotions,
Bring love AND prejudice into the open,
And then heal them with human connection.
It is not a small weight to carry,
And so I,
I reserve the right to my fire,
The occasional sharp tongue to cut through the *******,
But then you will find tenderness
To remind everyone:
Even in darkness you are never alone.

He attempts every method of contact,
Of intrusion,
As if I will somehow forgive him for breaking me,
Apologize one last time for HIS behavior.
What he does not know is that
Every crack he instilled
Only made me realize how much
I did not want to be broken anymore.
The sound of the last break
Was the front door,
Closing behind me.

To be *****
Is to become so numb
You have to be triggered to feel
Anything at all.
The absence of pain
Is a pain in and of itself.

The first lesson they teach us in EMT class
Is to never lose our compassion,
Never forget that every patient is
A human being with a story, a family, a life.
They tell us to keep our emotions in check
But to never lose our respect,
The trust in the competency and freedom of choice,
For we are the link of survival
On the worst day of their lives.
We were not there to know the reason that led
Up to the call,
But we are there to get them through the danger that followed.
Why then does the text book instruct us to abandon our respect,
Abandon the presumption of humanity
At the mere thought of the words 'developmental disability?'
Why do the words Autism and Down Syndrome suddenly
Make it okay to condescend and patronize as if to a child,
To infantilize an adult whose intelligence we are not qualified to assume?
Why is it my duty to respect a neurotypical patient
And my job to abandon it for the developmentally disabled?
I wonder if they would encourage my peers to treat me the same?
After all, who cares that I am top of the class and squad leader to boot?
Who cares that I answer the most questions or scored highest on the test?
I am autistic. I am considered less than human.
No.
The textbook is wrong,
Primitive despite being updated in 2018.
Respect every patient means Respect ALL,
No exceptions,
No diagnostic caveats.
'First, do no harm.'
Treat with empathy and compassion.
It is their own inhumanity that prevents them
From recognizing the humanity inside us,
The developmentally challenged.
I live on planet Autism,
Population 1 in 59,
No less of a person than any other,
Perhaps more human really.
That humanity is the force behind my First Responder drive.
Do not deign to treat me as small child or foreign planet inhabitant.
Forget the basis in the archaic.
Respect and compassion for all cannot be checked at the door.
I am not less than.
My struggles have, if anything,
Forced me to become more.

Stop asking for medical advice on Facebook,
Your superglue stitches and peroxide mismanagement
Will cost you more than a doctor's visit.
Stop asking for medical advice on Facebook
If you want to keep your limb.
I've found more competence on the "interweb."
Stop asking for medical advice on Facebook.
An oxygen embolism and cellulitis will
Have you putting out more than the Urgent Care.
Please, stop asking for medical advice on Facebook!
-Sincerely,
The EMT student who is constantly preventing disaster
For people with minor injuries who think 50's era first aid advice
Is a suitable alternative.

My mom always tell me that the doctors
Took heroic efforts to save my life,
That they went above and beyond the call of duty,
That if they hadn't thought me too
"Smart" and "beautiful" and "having the whole world going for me,"
I would be dead.
Number one: No one's chance of survival should depend on
Their looks, their opportunities, their cognitive ability.
Number two: None of it should've been necessary.
My text messages in the evening hours of 2/12/19
Are filled with the likes of "I don't feel safe,"
"I hate myself,"
"I am suicidal."
Their responses were simply,
"Do the best you can" and "Talk to the RA."
Yet they were surprised when 1 AM on 2/13/19
Found me in a hospital bed undergoing resuscitation.
Still,
When I woke up 10 days later,
They all wanted to know, "Why didn't you tell anybody?"

Sometimes I hope that someone might notice my difference,
Might intuit that the first approach,
The handshake, the "Can I join you?"
Is simply more difficult
And make the first move.
Sometimes I hope that people will realize the hand motions,
Foot tapping, slight rock of the body or toes
Are not merely a restless fidget,
Not impatience, nor disrespect.
Sometimes I want to be invisible,
Normal,
Neurotypical,
To be just another human being,
But mostly I wish to be accepted,
Autistic, quirky, kind, creative,
ME.

I vote we change Content Warning
To Contact Warning.
Please keep your words off my emotions
And your knives out of my heart.

Poets are an interesting bunch,
All half mad at least.
I say I love poetry
When the words tear me up inside,
Stealing every breath.
I say it soothes me
Even as it burns me,
Begging to be released.
"We all know we're crazy," I say.
"But we choose this life
Because we can't live without the fever dreams
Or syllables controlling our every move."
The non-poet stares at me,
Uncomprehending.

The hardest thing to reconcile
Is that you genuinely believed you love me,
And I truly loved you.
Now, I confuse gentle touch for hostile
Because you were wonderfully gentle
Until you weren't,
Before returning to gentle again.
The hardest part to reconcile is how you could be "so in love,"
Yet in that moment,
You were only concerned for your pleasure.
With a love like that,
I would never need enemies.

They taught us to scream "fire!"
"Help!" Would elicit no response.
They told us to wedge keys in our fingers,
To never walk alone in the night.
They told us to watch out for strangers,
To avoid masked men in dark alleys.
No one ever told me to beware of the man in my own bed,
To shudder when he told me he loved me.
No one told me that I would freeze,
Limbs powerless to fight him off.
They did not tell me I would know him, trust him, love him
Until the moment I couldn't anymore.
You can keep your **** whistles,
Your fists with car keys and staining sprays.
You can keep your roofie nail polish and SOS phone apps.
None of it would have done me any good
As I lay there, clinging to bed sheets and teddy bear.

You were not respecting my boundaries
By attempting to rearrange them
So you could continue as you pleased.

When I slam,
I am more human
Than humanity before me.

When I slam,
I am the queen
Bathed in poet glory.

When I slam,
I am mine alone.
No other beings touch me.

When I slam,
I am a warrior.
Syllables learn to fear me.

Depression does not have object permanence,
Or it would know
That happiness is merely
Hiding.

In time I have found
The memory of your touch has softened,
Your smile but an imprint on my heart.
It has been nearly a year now,
Since you've been gone,
But I am still
Broken open,
Waiting for you.

He said he loved me,
So why did he **** me?

"You can join our group," he says,
"But only if you look everyone in the eyes."
I freeze.
Surely he is aware by now that the words
Autism Spectrum Disorder
In my chart were not placed there for fun?
Surely he is aware by now that finger twitching, body rocking,
     gaze avoiding
Are not for my frivolous pleasure?
Surely he is aware by now the absurdity of what he asks?
I am autistic.
Burning irritation of the eyes and panic aside,
Staring creepily into another human's eyeballs
Would render group a waste of time, no possibility to listen.
He knows this.
It is his prejudice that keeps him rooted to the spot.
I can feel the weight of his expectations boring into my forehead.
Explaining what it is to ask this of me,
I remind him that drawing this line would be excluding me because
Of my autism.
I tell him he would be losing a valuable participant,
A deep thinker, a creator, an avid listener.
I tell him he would be discriminating,
That I am protected by law.
Oh, no.
He budges not,
For he does not dislike autistic humans
So long as they act like they are Neurotypical,
So long as I pretend to be
Someone I am not.

I cried into the darkness,
Tears dripping on notebook paper,
My reasoning scribbled between calculus,
Roommate snoozing as the clock blinked 1:00.
I pulled myself wearily into bed,
Empty Gatorade and pill bottles littered the floor.
I had not realized
Until after I swallowed
I didn't want to die
Anymore.

You sip on self pity
Now that wine has been vanquished from the house.
Bitter insults leaving your tongue
Like the smell of alcohol on your breath
As you pinned me to the mattress all those nights ago.
You accuse me of being like the rest,
Always leaving you in your worst moments.
Never had I questioned why they left.
You tell me to run,
For you only abuse those you love.
I had thought that your overcritical mind was exaggerating.
I wish I had seen those for what they were,
A warning,
Not some misplaced self hatred.
It is proof of my love that you seek,
The thrill of me chasing you as you degrade and run away
That fuels your affection for me.
You ask me to tell you I love you.
You ask me to assure you I will never leave.
You want me to beg you to stay.
I cannot.
I once loved you.
I am leaving you.
There will be no need when I am done.

Do you ever just feel like you’re dying,
Like a million suns from unknown galaxies
Are crashing into you,
Stealing the space and air from your lungs,
Colliding with your heart,
Until what’s left of your soul detaches from your body?

Do you ever just feel like even starlight
Cannot keep the hope awake in your chest
And you yearn for the precipice that is the night sky
To swallow your whole?

Do you ever just think to yourself
That only monsters live inside you
And you are doomed to forever repeat
Your mistakes on time lapse
With despair in your bones?

Do you ever feel like there is no soul alive
Who is want for what you have to offer,
That the madness within is your only gift
But no one dares to receive?

I do.

I will never tell them
Of the man in hospital chair beside me,
Chest hair poking through blue paper scrubs,
More than was on his head.
His locks like dull gray wires on scalp,
Jutting into the air as if charged,
Leaving a shiny full moon patch of skin on top.
I will never tell them
The way his beard seemed to stretch as he bent my direction,
Joining forces with the follicles on his chest,
The way his breath seemed to steal mine as he occupied my space.
I will never tell them
About the man whose name starts with M.
They will know I could not look him in the eyes to see their color.
They will not know how old he looked when he stretched my way,
Voice barely audible over the din
Of other patients screaming and thrashing in their restraints,
Yells of babies ****** out under drugged hazes,
The wild fantasies of diseased minds.
They will not know.
I will never tell them
How his muscles flexed when he stood,
Shouting at another patient,
The fight,
His eyes seeking mine as if for approval.
They will know I did not look.
I will never tell them how he took my hand,
Mumbling into my ear about how soft was my skin,
Arms draped over my wheelchair, uninvited
As I huddled under blankets.
I will never tell them
How my best friend watched,
My teddy bear given to me at birth.
Although not human,
I regret my inability to shield her eyes from this abomination of a man.
She will know that I tried to tell him no.
She will know that staff walked by,
Blind to my waving hands,
Unable to hear the silent whoosh of air passing through my damaged vocal chords
As I begged for their assistance.
I will never tell them
The way he rubbed my back or traced my arm
Before settling his hands too high on my thigh to be polite.
I cannot say more here.
I will never tell them
About the ice in my stomach,
Flooding through my body,
Already numb to my circumstance,
Afraid that he would merely lift my withered body from my chair
And do what he intended on the floor.
No faith had I that staff were the slightest bit of help.
The interest of other patients in my voiceless body
Was a welcome distraction to the psychiatrist
Doling out necessary medication to those more dangerous than I.
I will never tell them
What he did to me in the common area,
Stuffed bear the only one present of mind enough to bear witness.
Therapist has a word for his actions,
Not one I had ever intended to apply to my story,
Something reserved for the unfortunate lot of others,
Assault.
I will never tell them
His name like jagged teeth
Or the way his hands wandered without consent.
For in their minds I am nothing without corroboration,
And HIPPA law will prevent that.
After all, was I not merely a mental patient anyway?

They want to know if I went to Heaven,
If the moment my heart stopped,
I was blinded by the White Light
And the love of a Higher Power.
They want to know if I saw Him.
I recognize now that it is more for their own sense of comfort,
But the first time they asked,
My eyes met theirs with a scorn fierier than the seven circles,
None of which I saw.
They want to know if there is something out there waiting to embrace them
In warm and loving arms.
I cannot say.
I saw nothing,
Just blackness
Followed by the soft browns of the coma tunnel,
Bubbles sweeping gently around,
Shapes resembling sea stars,
The dwellings of an unconscious mind.
Sometimes I miss that tunnel,
Neither hot nor cold,
Jubilant or depressed,
Just floating,
Swimming almost in the vast entrapments of my brain,
Breathing in the liquid,
No emotions.
People might ask if this is my own personal Heaven,
To which I would answer ‘no.’
It was missing an achingly familiar face,
That of a friend,
Gone from this world too soon,
Much in the way I had attempted to exit mine.
They want to know if flat lines mean white gates and Heavenly choirs,
And this I do not know.
I find no glory in my own death,
Albeit only for a minute or two.
I find no great discovery of the afterlife,
Only the aftermath,
The physical pain,
The long and drawn out healing,
The fear of friends and family.
No,
I did not go to Heaven,
If there is such a thing,
For I know,
Sydney will be waiting for me.
In my coma tunnel, I was left all alone.

My heart has broken every day
Since the moment you went away,
And though there are tears I long to cry,
My eyes have stayed unyieldingly dry.

The ache has faded and left the truth.
Gone are the days I counted as youth.
And though I thought I was grown,
No loss like this had I known.

I didn’t suspect you’d take your leave
Or that you’d be the one to teach me grief
So that I would know as hours passed
That those we love don’t ever last.

Oh, how far you and I have come
Since we counted up the sum
Of suffering shared and what it meant
To be unbroken, only bent.

How I miss you in my dreams
And in the silent painful screams.
I chase your footprints up those stairs,
No longer running; you’re not there.

I think of all the times I went
To your aid; my ear I lent
And drew you into strengthening hug.
The flow of tears with thumbs I plugged,

Whispered softly in your ear,
No need to cry for I am here.
I hope you felt my tender love.
If not, you know now up above.

And though I wish you’d made a different choice,
I still respect your timeless voice
And remember how you spoke my name.
I hope you know I felt the same.

I took a walk for Sydney down the beach into the waves,
The ocean churning at my feet, icy,
White foam caressing pale toes trodden in black sand.
I imagined two hands,
Yours and mine intertwined,
The rare joy sparking in your face despite the cold.
I think about the wind whipping our hair back,
Laughter as the water soaked our pants.
I wouldn’t have minded.
For you, Sydney, I will dance in the sand, swim in the frigid ocean,
Twirl as the sun dries our clothes.
For you, Sydney, I will cast off my shoes with reckless abandon,
Forget sensory issues and the need for socks.
For you, Sydney, I will find joy in both the most beautiful and hardest of places.
You deserve only the best from me.
I took a walk for Sydney, down the beach amongst memories,
Your tears falling amongst their salty brethren.
Haven’t you heard how salt water heals old wounds?
For you, Sydney,
I will master the art of suturing the psyche,
Learn to bend time and space,
Inching the edges of the divide together,
Closing the injuries of your heart.
For you Sydney,
I walk down this beach with light feet and heavy chest.
I am yours, always have been.
For you Sydney,
I will hold hands, no autistic space bubble as I sit with you in your sadness.
I will wipe your face and hold your body against mine.
I will fight the monsters that seemed to steal the air out of the room.
I will search for meaning amongst these sounds,
Find depths in the swells and crests,
I will look for you amongst the proud rocks that jut towards the sky,
I will find you where you loved the hardest and the most,
In the beauty you forgot existed all around you.