Autismtastic

I’m sorry for the times I screamed,
For the times I didn’t understand our genes,
Because in the beginning I didn’t know there something was wrong,
When you kept repeating everything you heard and went along,
Echoing every word I said,
Echoing every word I said.
 
Oh, your face.
 
I remember that time we sat in the restaurant,
When the band started playing right up front,
And even though I knew the music was loud,
You started crying so hard in the crowd,
I didn’t know what was wrong,
I didn’t know what was wrong.
 
Oh, your tears.
 
I recall the times I had to take time off work,
Because in kindergarten class they thought you were a jerk,
You just wouldn’t listen to the teacher,
But we didn’t know the features,
It was like you were trapped inside a prison,
You had the classic signs of autism.
 
Oh, your eyes.
 
I thought “No, not my son, how can this happen to me”,
But it wasn’t about me, it was about solving the puzzling mystery,
It was about seeing the world through your eyes,
Because in discovering you I would be able to sympathize,
And then understand you more,
And then understand you more.
 
Oh, your smile.
 
I know that your mom and I couldn’t work it out,
But I had to heal to deal someway or somehow,
Because I looked back and I thought,
There were many reasons why we fought,
I too was on the spectrum,
I too was on the spectrum.
 
Oh, my reflection.
 
Forgive me for not being a better father in those days,
I made my choices and that took me farther away,
But the short time we spend together fulfills my heart,
Even though we so spend so much time apart,
And that what gets me inside,
And that what gets me inside.
 
Oh, my tears.
 
I’m sorry I pulled away as the years flew by,
But there we many nights when I’d cry,
Thinking I should’ve been better, written you more letters,
Calling you or texting you saying “Son I’ll love you forever.”
But then I hear you say the same words,
But this time you’re using your own words.
 
Oh your smile.

He placed the dinosaurs on the front line,
the flanks and rear were covered by a box
of plastic US Marines, moulded in pale green.
The all seeing eye of a make shift Mordor
released the rolling death of a steel ball
that decimated the soldiers and rendered
dinosaurs extinct. The day was saved
by a red Power Ranger who dispatched
destruction without speaking.

As he grew, the soldiers turned mercs
and fought campaigns on the Broken Shore
serving the Legionfall in a world of warcraft
without question.
The room seemed smaller, films and books
to cry and laugh, conversations typed-out
over and over using the same words
without moving his mouth.

His paint was wearing thin, cracks
held back by fillers bought on prescription,
the threshold of the front door saw
a chocolate Labrador trying
to cross a three lane motorway,
emotions slammed on the hard shoulder
by some girl racer, who could talk her prey
onto any cliff-top walk of desperation.

The internet found another hand until they spoke
one real word inside the real world “hello”
The cafe turned into coffee and kitchen tables,
for eight hours she peeled back his slightly torn
crinkled wrap, feeling for the soft edges,
trying to understand the shape of his gifts.
Before she left, she made her three guesses.
A mirror that would only contain glimpses,
Shoes that allowed you to swap places
and a beat up red Power Ranger,
that would always be there to save the day.

'I cannot teach anybody anything,  
I can only make them think.'
              - Socrates      
 
It's okay to be different;  
everything on Earth is strange  
to everything else.  
The quest for understanding  
is the electrical bridge  
within that formless gap  
which luminesces  
and grows experience  
through learning and trying to envision    
what seems nebulous at best.  
   
The mind needs observed differences  
to expand its bank of experience  
and to learn to distinguish  
many points on a spectrum  
and hear those wavelengths  
as musical notes in    
symphonic harmony.  
   
To begin to piece things together  
in a way that fits, and to never  
stop trying is to reach others  
outside our full understanding.    
   
The misunderstood teach us  
so much as they muddle along.  
They open doors into rooms we  
haven't explored within ourselves;  
they exist in a small, dormant state  
that calls to us to pay attention to it.  
   
The power of the mind is exalted in  
this challenge:    
To face what we fear and/or avoid;  
the truth that we are all different from  
all others and no one is the better or the worse.  
   
We all have unique gifts and each one  
has a purpose; to find that purpose  
is a lesson in resourcefulness.  
Some resources are more obvious  
and superficial than others;  
some remain hidden in the attics  
of our minds, yet underutilized.  
   
It's okay to be an Otherthinker.  
   
              ......