my mother tells me she
just thought i was
quirky
like the head tilt that
didn’t go away until i
got glasses at eight years old,
and then was “four eyes” up until
high school graduation
like how, still as a child
i would count the words in
every sentence before speaking,
and if the amount wasn’t an even
number i would hit myself until
the skin of my small hands
was a bright and angry red
like the head-shaking,
hand-wringing, knuckle and
finger-bend-biting, gentle swaying side
to side like a videogame character
waiting to be chosen
like how my mom told me,
mid-20s when it didn’t hurt quite so much,
that she went to the elementary school principal
because she ‘thought there was something
wrong with her son, and should he be
tested for autism?’
but no, they told her, don’t worry
he’s fine, he’ll grow out of it,
and by the time that it had been admitted
girls could have autism, i wasn’t
even a girl anymore
but i wasn’t fine, and i
didn’t grow out of it, and that
quirkiness became a length of rope,
just enough for a noose
and i was quirky and an
old soul, but in that polite way that
adults mean to say that there’s something
wrong with you
and i was sixteen then,
stilly quirky and an old
soul, and standing behind a thin
paper curtain in the first of two years
of psychiatric wards, handing a nurse
my boxers with the pad still in it,
stained with blood
but no, the hospital couldn’t give me
birth control to stop the periods that
caused gender dysphoria so bad i
had to make myself bleed in other ways to cope,
because they were a religious institution
and my stomach still hurt from the pills
when the doctor i was forced to meet with,
crombury, rhymes with cranberry,
told me that i wasn’t actually transgender,
silly girl,
it’s just a diversion tactic
still don’t know what i was diverting from,
and he never did clarify, but i sure
must be in it for the long con now, huh?
and there was something wrong with me,
likely still is, since i never did outgrow
that autism, just got told i was too
high functioning to be diagnosed, to get
any supports
and i was quirky,
an old soul,
and not like other girls, but worse,
and then not even a girl at all
and the adults would smile and
say these things, because they couldn’t
just say there was something
wrong with me
and sure that builds character,
or whatever,
but it’s the kind of character that makes
you weird at parties
and i’m real fuckin’ tired of
being weird at parties