I can feel myself slipping
From this world
And slowly sinking
Into the depths of darkness –
Watching those familiar faces
Fade from my grasp
Instead becoming consumed
By confusion,
Fear
And muteness.
The iron bars of my cage.

Plunging into my thoughts,
A never ending sea of blackness.
Slowly suffocating
As the barriers fortify
Around my mind.
A cry, a scream for help
As I pound at the strengthening barriers:
Someone help me!
Let me out of here!
Before taciturnity robs me
Of my speech.
Routines and repetitions,
And my own world engulfs me.

Muteness and trembling.
Please, Taci, speak!
Your voice, the panic, the worry
As you grasp my shoulders
And shake me
With an unknown fear
As if to break me from this state.
Why can’t you speak?
My own eyes wide
As I stare at you,
Dumbfounded and fearful.

Sinking deeper into the depths
Of my mind:
Slipping further and further
Into routines and obsessions.
Voices are faded, from another world,
Alien and vague
Spoken in another language.
Incomprehensible and of no meaning,
No use to me!

You watch me on the other side
Of the invisible barrier;
Your hand blocked from my reach.
No matter how hard,
How much you want to help
And try,
Nothing can be done
To stop me from
Slipping through your fingers.

I gaze from afar
Through the tiny window of my mind.
Watching you all laugh, smile and cry.
What do your emotions mean?
What are they for?
What do your face expressions mean?
I am not built for this world:
Too fragile and brittle.
One hit and I'll smash
Into a million billion shards.
My obsessions
Perceived as ecccentric.
My way of speaking -
The shakiness in my voice
And the muteness
Deemed abnormal.
I am an alien becoming more alien.
My language and my mind
Both unsolved paradoxes.

I have two wondrous little switches,
One by each ear.
I turn them to off
And my world becomes clear.
I'm transported to a place,
Inside my head,
Hidden and locked away.
Where sounds
And face expressions
Are meaningless, lost.
Face expressions take on new meaning,
Angry, loving or smiling?
I look into these faces
And I ask myself:
Just what are these ears hiding?

I live in binary worlds
One with sound,
And the other without.
One is normal,
Mouths silently moving,
Sounds muffled and distance,
Words dancing from my reach.
The other, dragons abound.

This is my own world
Built with my rules,
And my imagination.
Myself and myself only.
I am the king and the queen;
The prince and the princess;
The sun in the sky
And the flame in the darkness.
I am the evil wizard,
And the mage of light.

This my own place,
My own place to escape to.
My oasis and serenity.
No more misunderstanding,
No more rejection,
Pain and hurt.
This is how I am different,
Different from you.

Adrenaline pulses through my veins;
My heart is ready to beat
As I leap from the edge of the cliff.
My once bound wings unfurl
Catching the air and lifting me upwards,
Upwards to my freedom.

The bonds have broken:
The chains of deafness shattered,
And the ropes of autism snapped.
Gone are the dancing words
That slide from my grasp;
Gone is the suffocating silence
That once formed the iron bars of my cage.
No more confusion – chaos and disorder;
No barrier that separated me
From the crowds.
Socialisation, ****** expressions, emotions
Together form a language
That I can now truly understand!

“There will always be a light
At the end of the tunnel.”
"Don't dream it; believe it!"
Words spoken a few months ago,
Filled with hope and love
That would save my descending
And spiralling world.
Laughter, my laughter
Streams beside me
As I rocket through the air
Towards the rising sun:
My future, my hope.
No more misunderstanding;
No more enigma or taciturnity!
Nothing will stop me
From fulfilling my dreams now
And belonging to this world!

I am the bullet,
Freed by a pull of the trigger
And the kick of the hammer.
Filled with hatred,
Clad in cold steel,
I am emotionless.
Built for war
And born to ****,
My purpose:
To end lives, nothing more.

Bright lights,
Sharp sounds,
Overwhelming -
A world of confusion.
Swarming crowds
Mouths move silently:
Floating words
Dancing from my reach.
Chaos and disorder
No routine,
No order.
A world without sense,
No head nor tail.
No direction.

Encased in liquid diamond.
Trapped,
Lost,
Outcast,
Stranger.
Who am I?
What am I?
Taciturn,
Mute,
Fragile.
Words tangled,
Mind scrambled,
No beginning or end.
Skin contact
Burns like wildfire.
Eye contact
Disconcerting.
Emotionless,
Without ****** expression.
Ravaging emotions inside
With no left or right;
No stigma, no control.
I am not a psychopath
Nor a sociopath.
But an enigma,
A paradox
Yet to be understood.

A lost jigsaw piece,
From a world of order,
A world of routine
And understanding.
Flung into a world
Of chaos and disorder.
An insane world
Of alienation,
Rejection
And pain.
Laughter and cruel taunts,
As sharp as knives:
"You're in your own world;
You don't belong here.
Go back to where you came from,
And stay there!"

My world:
No chaos, no disorder.
Routine and repetition.
A world without hurt
And pain.
It's my place to escape to,
My world
And my world only.
A jigsaw puzzle
That no one else can solve.
My shield and shell.
But my descending spiral
Into loneliness,
Sadness
And taciturnity.
A constant tug of war
Between my world and reality.
A will to break free
Of my misunderstood mind,
And to be like them:
The "normal" people.
To be able to speak
Of my own free will,
To not be trapped
By periods of muteness.
To be free of routine
And repetition.
Fear pulls me back
Hurls me back to my world:
A world of safety,
Warmth,
And sense.
Away from the bright lights,
Away from the sharp sounds.
Engulfed by soothing darkness,
Immersed in the comforting silence.
No more crowds.
Just me and myself,
No other company.

I am irregular:
Chaos walking,
A living bomb.
You are regular:
A jigsaw piece,
A part of this world,
A world of madness
And confusion.
Teach me,
The cogs and wheels
Of this world.
Teach me to be like you -
To speak,
Catch those dancing words
And to read
Those face expressions:
The meaning of a smirk,
The definition of a frown,
The significance of a wince.
Intellect, emotions and empathy.
To operate without routine.
No repetition.
And I'll teach you,
How my world works,
How the pieces
Fit and bind together.
The clockwork,
And the never ending echoes.
And at last
A spark of hope,
A beginning.
The mark of a new era,
An era of understanding,
And conveying.
No more questions,
No more confusion.
We can finally fit together,
And at last,
I am a part of your jigsaw puzzle.

Normality
Is all I want.
Functioning in normality,
To function
In this insane world.
A world of madness and confusion.