Penguin sonnet

I took a workshop on Shakespearan improv and they had us write a sonnet with a prompt of penguins. 

Is it a perfect sonnet? LOL no. 

Have it anyways:

They say the penguin cannot fly, and yet —

You join me in the pilot’s cabin now.

Stood before the console to lose their bet

Underspecified, never asking how

If not over-under your own power, 

Topsy-turvy diodes pedals controls,

Wings you’re not born with turned to the tower,

List’ning for radio on angled bowls.

Preflight checks completed, penguins seated

Engines waking only to dream again

Of impossibility once defeated

Never seems so firm a never again

Hark! A penguin! Taken up to the sky.

Wings for water move wings for air, now fly. 

My fear is not of water.

Written at a poetry workshop at my university's gender and sexuality center. The prompt was a first memory of a swimming pool/body of water. 

My fear is not of water.

I know my mother took me to the JCC when I was a baby,

Held my head above the water and let me bounce and splash.

But that's not what I remember.

You shall teach your child the ten commandments and how to swim

They wrote above the door.

She taught me how to swim, a little.

Watched me in the pool as I bounced and splashed and swam underwater.

But that's not what I remember.

My first distinct memory of water, I am in a lake.

Swimming lessons, I am three,

Too strong a swimmer for the pre-school classes and placed with the kindergartners.

We sit in a circle in the lake.

Suddenly, it matters that I am smaller than my classmates.

I am not tall enough to sit and keep my head above water.

I gasp. I stand. I cry and leave.

My fear is not of water, but of adults telling me it is safe for me to sit,

Then discovering, gasping, that they are wrong.

I don't return to the lesson.

I do drag my mother back to the water with me.

My fear is not of water.

My next distinct memory of water, I am at my grandfather's pool. I think I am eight.

We splash each other, shoot each other with water guns.

I pull myself up on the floating mattress, laughing.

He sits. On my head. He doesn't know I'm there.

I stare up at him, trying not to panic.

I can hold my breath for one minute.

That's one minute to get out.

I can reach the edges of the mattress with my arms.

I pull with my arms and my neck.

My head pops free. I can breathe.

My fear is not of water, but of adults who want only the best for me,

Hurting me because of what they do not know.

I still join swim team, in high school,

Pass out into the pool the first time I swim the 200 medley.

Swim the medley again at league championships, repeating to myself:

Butter, back, breast, free, don't pass out.

My fear is not of water.

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The absent minded professor

It wasn't exactly a secret to me that some professors are autistic. First off ... professors are a subset of humans, and therefore I would expect to meet some autistic professors. Then there's the bit where a really focused interest (in an area you can get a doctorate in) might come in handy for getting a PhD. Plus I'm pretty good at recognizing other autistic adults when I meet them, though they don't always know themselves.

It's even less of a secret (by which I mean it'd be pretty easy to deduce if you think about it, plus you could find out by listening to us) that academia is frequently inaccessible for autistic people. Department politics? UH-OH. Bureaucracy? UH-OH. Networking, and getting jobs in ways that may or may not have much to do with the "official" channels? UH-OH.



And yet.
Hans Asperger described some of us as "little professors." Why did he think we were like professors? Or, perhaps more to my point, why did he think professors were like us?

Neurodiversity in the academy.
We've been there all along. Or, some of us have.

Can you speak, at length, on your topic of interest?
Can you speak at all?
We might have use for you.

Do you look like the person we expect at university?
Enough that we'll deal with the bureaucracy for you?
We might have use for you.

Can you maintain the schedule we expect?
Even the graduate school version? And the adjunct version?
We might have use for you.

But that's not really neurodiversity, is it?
It's just moving the line.

The absent-minded professor may well be autistic. I've met a few who are.
But without solidarity from the ones who were always given a space, this supposed representation is nothing but Aspie elitism.
(I don't pretend that Aspie is a useful category, but elitism based around the idea that it is? For people presumed to fit there? Now, that is very real.)

Remember that the absent-minded professor we are shown is always a man, always white, usually at least middle aged.
The only allusion we get to autism as disability, and not purely (or even primarily) social, is that his wife might take care of him when he forgets to eat. Or he just doesn't take good care of himself.
Sensory processing issues? Who knows.
Executive functioning? I think that's why his wife is feeding him. Or maybe it explains the Rube Goldberg machine that makes a mess of the food but does provide something vaguely edible. Usually.
But it's always a him, and it's always his wife.

What about the autistic people who aren't a "him?"
Women. Nonbinary people.
What about the autistic people who don't have wives?
Who takes care of us, if it turns out that our living alone wasn't such a great idea after all?
Or do we just not get to be academics?

So here's to the ones who were never supposed to make it through.
Here's to the ones who didn't, because they weren't mean to.
The university might be a haven for some of us,
But without solidarity from those who were permitted
For those who never passed for consistently verbal white men who live on their own or found a woman to pick up the slack
Or even for the "close enough" of one difference away,
It's only ever another aspie elitist wrong planet to build a home on.





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Inspiration and Inspiration

Inspiration and Inspiration

I Hate one.
I am not your inspiration simply for existing.
I am not your inspiration because I am able to write and tell
my story that you will reduce to overcoming what wasn't an
obstacle with the help of the real barriers in a way I would
never approve of.
I am not your inspiration.
That is a complete sentence.

I Love-Hate the other.
I am inspired not in the way of a warm fuzzy feeling,
But in the way of words are demanding to be written
Art is demanding to be made,
And I can not eat or sleep or stop or work on my the
homework that is about to be due until this idea has
pushed its way into existence no matter the toll on me.
I harness my inspiration.
It writes my complete sentence.

#NaPoWriMo April 4-6

The poeming continues!

April 4

Mathematically and neurodivergently musing
Order preserving maps
If you could compare the input, you can compare the output.
Or:
Follow the charted paths in the order they are given to you.
Maps depict and preserve order (unless they don't.)
Is it X that marks the spot?
What is the spot?
And since we're talking inputs and outputs:
What's in the box?


April 5

Month of awareness,
Month of acceptance,
Month of hullabaloo,
Look at the moon and wonder:
How many messages are attached to the cycle of one great rock about another?
How many messages are we missing?


April 6

Conflations, confusions.
"Don't you agree that X is needed?"
The ends will not justify all means.
Any end can be reached by multiple means.
Conflate, conflate, conflate.
"She'll never get a job if she can't learn to stop that."
How old is this kid again?
Does there need to be a power struggle over it now?
Really?
Are you sure?
Would that power struggle have taught you the skill?
Really?
Are you sure?

April 1-3 #NaPoWriMo

Once again, April rolls around. That means National Poetry Writing Month, and it means Autism Hullabaloo Month. I have decided that is the name now because awareness months are generally for things that are bad and that we want to get rid of, and because acceptance isn't enough/is kind of getting appropriated, and because even the folks doing things I like are making lots of words and pictures and posts. Good ones, and I wouldn't have them stop if I could, but it does, in fact, add to the total hullabaloo. Which is sort of the point, adding good stuff to this mix so people can find such if they want it.

So here's my poems for April 1-3.

April 1:

Sidhe Fool, pray do tell,
How do you always jest?
How are your tricks always true?
Trickster, not liar,
Will you be my April Fool?


April 2:

Always remember: Icarus flew too close to the sun.
The higher you fly, the further you have to fall.
But when did heroes sleep safe?
And when did we forget the other word of warning:
Do not fly too low, too close to the sea.
We have forgotten, and so we remain.
Aim low, aim low, don't look up to the sky.
Aim low, aim low, locked still (unsafe) until we die.


April 3:

Questioning answers,
and questioning questions.
Theory of whose mind?
Awareness of what about autism?
Awareness for whom?
Awareness of whom?
Don't believe everything you read on the internet.
Are you sure you don't want me to believe what you say on the internet?
(Remember that your journal is online now!)

Flash

Now that they (don't) have our attention,
Fight, flight, freeze has the reins.
Thump, thump, thump goes my heart.
Couldn't they have just punched me in the face?

But no.
Punching is known to be violent.
Strobes?
Apparently not.

Computer games, commercials, supposedly provide them.
Warnings, warnings, warnings.
Even when they don't flash.
Can I get a notice before you actually strobe?




(Sooo one of the capstone groups thought strobe lights were a great way to get our attention before their presentation. And, in fact, it takes my heart rate longer to get back to baseline from that than from actually getting hit in the face. Not having epilepsy, my reaction is comparatively mild- strobes are not at risk of killing me- but seriously people need to not use strobes in class presentations, especially without warning. What if there was a classmate who did have epilepsy instead of "just" sensory processing issues?)

Be Brave (Revolution)

Say what you wanna say and let the words fall out.
They say war is necessary,
But we say war is child abuse.
Find the new ways that we must be king,
Instead of leading the young to our suffering.
I wanna see you be brave.

Sign what you wanna sign and let the words fall out.
Don't let them pretend they're saving you!
Don't bend, don't break, baby, don't back down.
There's no one here to save.
I wanna see you be brave.

Write what you wanna write and let the words fall out.
Start a revolution at the break of day.
So we're calling all the crows, they're coming in slow
It's gonna be a showdown, said the rebel to the revolutionary follow me,
We tell the court, you tell the king,
That we ain't listening to you no more!
I wanna see you be brave.

Type what you wanna type and let the words fall out.
You could cut ties with all the lies you've been living in.
It's time to try defying gravity.
Unlimited, together we're unlimited
As someone told me lately,
Everyone deserves the chance to fly.
I wanna see you be brave.



Another echolalic poem. Lyrics (sometimes slightly modified) from:
Brave- Sara Bareilles
People of the Sun- PONS
King of Anything- Sara Bareilles
White Flag Warrior- Flobots
It's My Life-Bon Jovi
Jumper- Third Eye Blind
Calling all Crows- State Radio
Knights of Bostonia- State Radio

On #WAAD I...

Check the calendar.
It's really today.
Can it not? Can we not?
Please.
One year, one day, someday.
But no. Blue is here.

I sigh, and don my armor orange.
April 2 is still a Thursday, still a long day.
Flap my way to class,
Rock in my chair,
Look a foot to my teacher's left.
No hiding today of all days.
No letting people think autism is only children.

In class, we are asked of stresses and strains.
(I'm an engineering student, and a math student.)
I flap for words.
I speak.
I flap for words.
Fewer words come.
I flap for words-No words.
They're gone.
I flap for words-No words.
Dare I type instead?

Don my armor orange.
No hiding today of all days.
Out the iPad comes, to speak.
Autism doesn't speak unless autistic people are speaking.

The Worst Nightmare You Don't Know

I am your worst, I am your worst nightmare,
You, you will suck, the life out of me.
You're trying to save me, stop holding your breath.
I'm just a problem that doesn't want to be solved.
Tired of being what you want me to be,
I am your worst, I am your worst nightmare,
Stab me with your steely knives, but you just can't kill the beast!

I'm a failure to you, a failure to you, yes I'm a failure to you.
Can it be, I'm not meant to play this part?
Oh, my soul needs to be free
I'm through with playing by the rules of someone else's game.
Bury it, I won't let you bury it.
I won't let you murder it, I won't let you smother it.
All I want to do is be more like me and be less like you.

I am your worst, I am your worst nightmare,
You don't know what it's like to be like me.
Get along with the voices inside of my head!
I'm not drowning; there's no one here to save.
I'm through accepting limits cause someone says they're so.
The flaw you're looking for does not exist,
It's just a figment of the higher man's tongue.
All I want to do is be more like me and be less like you.
I am your worst, I am your worst nightmare,



This poem is echolalic, pulling from song lyrics. I used lyrics from:
Novocaine- Fall Out Boy
Monster- Eminem/Rhianna
King of Anything- Sara Berellis
Defying Gravity-Wicked
Hotel California- The Eagles
Bats in the Belfry- Dispatch
Strangers Fate- High Tide (now The Saturday Nights)
Reflection-Mulan
Welcome to My Life- Simple Plan
People of the Sun- PONS (now The Saturday Nights)
Numb-Linkin Park
Open Up- Dispatch
Time is Running Out-Muse

I may attempt to record this at some point, we'll see.

In this poem, "I" is me/autism/autistic me, and "you" would be the folks who for some reason think autism is the scariest thing ever, just to be clear.

Failure

References to cure, death, and instutionalization

Failure

Cure, Death, Institutionalization.
Waiting for just one wrong move,
Just one bad step and it's the institution for us.
Death of our choices (Beware the choice! Beware refusing it!)
Cure for other's discomfort over our existence.
Institutionalization, Death, Cure.

Make us become so numb,
To be less like me, and be more like you.
Beware our choices, beware refusing them,
Instead choose to control and hide them.
Waiting for just one wrong move,
Just one bad step,
Prove we are failures, all, to you.
Then enforce the endings three.

This might seem a strange poem to put up on Autistic Pride Day, to submit to the Autistic Artistic Carnival for Autistic Pride Day, but there are reasons.
This poem is not an expression of my pride. I do that often enough, here and elsewhere. When I stim openly, in public (as I will also do, this Autistic Pride Day,) that is an expression of my pride, that I am proud of who I am. When I assert my right to exist, as I am, in spite of all the messages otherwise, I am asserting my Autistic Pride. This poem is something different. This poem is why we need Autistic Pride. This poem is what we're up against. And this poem is echolalic. I take other's words and turn them around to say what I want to say.

The cure, death, institutionalization pattern: I've used it before in The Ends, and I pulled it from an article written by a disabled person about the representation of disabled characters in fiction. I've since lost the article, but the words stayed, repeating in my mind.

There's some pulled from The Saturday Nights, or from a song they played two name changes ago, Strangers Fate, which I've also written about before. The line's I'm using are: "Waiting for just one wrong move,/ Just one bad step./ I'm a failure to you." Those are from the refrain.

"Beware the Choice! Beware refusing it!" is a Young Wizards reference. (Book of Night with Moon, Tetrastych XIV: “Fire Over Heaven”) It's by Diane Duane, and as long as you're sticking to the New Millennium Editions I really recommend the series. The print editions are mostly OK except book 6, which is terrible in the original version and awesome in the new version.

The last reference is from Linkin Park's Numb, in the refrain. "I've become so numb" is the first line of the refrain, and the last three lines of the refrain are "All I want to do/ Is be more like me/ And be less like you." I changed it around, because while I do, in fact, want to be more like me and be less like expectations of what I should be, I'm not talking about what I want here. I'm writing about what they're pushing, which is for us to be more like the expectations.

Poem Time! (4 poems)

It's April. It's NaPoWriMo. I'm trying not to let my poem posting fall quite as far behind as it did last year. So here's 4. Warning for cures/death/institutionalization in The Ends, death in Changes, and that none of them are light.


Untitled

Disabled AND proud.
Disabled AND awesome.
Disabled AND positive.
But, but, but, implying something's strange.
And, and, and, no contradictions here.
No paradoxes of disability and winning,
Here even when the plot doesn't demand.



The Ends

Cure, Death, Institutionalization.
These our our fates in the stories we sideline.
Our rare headlines must be cured.
Cure, Death, Institutionalization.
Is this truly all we are given?
Then we must take,
The worst they can do is status quo.



Shoes (Thank Neurodivergent K for the idea.)

Walk in their shoes, their shoes, their shoes.
The shoes that pinch and rub and blister,
Not built for me, or for those like me.
There are no shoes made for us.
If I can't have my own, there will be no shoes.
No assimilation to lives not my own.
Barefoot revolution.



Changes

One leaflet more or less,
Normal or death to my luck.
One wiring same or different,
Mythical goals I must reject.

Keys

Clang, clang, clang, clang, clang, clang
Words ring in the background of my mind.
Try to ignore, try to press on,
Ringing drowns out my world,
Scattered words beg for release,
My mouth will not comply.
Clang, clang, clang, clang, clang, clang
Jumbling and fumbling between thought and deed,
Speech ever clumsy, hands ever yearning
For the keys to let my words free.

I am Autism

I am Autism

Here I stand, the epidemic, tsunami.
Here I stand, in your classes, on your streets.
Your teachers, your classmates, you neighbors.
Do I look so fearsome as I stand?
Maybe I should.

Strength you won't know, from bearing the world
Too loud, too bright, too close,
What's a moment's discomfort to me?
Tired of running, I stand my ground.
I am autism, hear me roar.

Disability Fearmongering Rhetoric Disorder

DFRD

Terrifying statistics, epidemics, children stolen by an unknown foe,
No person stealing us away, an abstract idea of miswired minds,
Of lives gone awry when the menace struck:
Disability Fearmongering Rhetoric Disorder.
DFRD, it leaves families empty and lifeless.
The tricksters laugh on, they need not steal what we throw away.
No need to hide what's presumed gone,
No need to take what's ignored in favor of fear.




So um this one got inspired by Amy's post about Autism Speaks Rhetoric Disorder (ASRD). I used a different name because it happens with other disabilities too and because Autism Speaks isn't even the only offender for autism. It's the biggest one, best funded one, here in the USA, but it's not the only one and I don't want to let the others slip under the radar, especially not Generation Rescue, considering that they actively promote stuff like bleach enemas and chelation.

Autism Fearmongering Rhetoric Disorder (AFRD) is a subdiagnosis of DFRD, with the Autism Speaks specific Autism Speaks Rhetoric Disorder a subcategory of AFRD. April is the awareness month for the entire Autism Fearmongering Rhetoric Disorder subdiagnosis, with Autism Speaks Rhetoric Disorder perhaps the most widespread due to the organization's large reach.

Two Days Poems

April is NaPoWriMo. (It's also Camp NaNoWrimo, but I'm not doing that.)
NaPoWriMo=National Poetry Writing Month. NaNoWriMo=National Novel Writing Month, for the curious.
What this means is I'm writing a poem a day in April. Here's the April 2 and April 3 poems.

April 2: Clovers

Looking over a 4-leaf clover.
Overlooking Awareness Day, intentionally.
Preferring my clovers, drawing my metaphors:
Clovers and autism between.
One helps find another.
One analogizes another.
What am I?
Four leaves, clustered, not as rare as believed.
Five leaves, surprising many by being real.
Can the clovers explain my existence?

April 3: Allism

Experiences.
Life with allism?
Does "lacking autism" disturb?
Is there a severe lack of stimming?
It's tragic, you see, this living with lacks.
Not the lives, just the words written of them.

Words of War

They come again with their words of war,

Awareness, vigilance, combat this new menace!

This stealthy thief of lives,

No need to take what you believe already gone,

The trickster-gods have their laughs.

And I, whom they seek to “free”?

I prepare to meet their charge.

Don my armor orange, sharpen my pointed words,

If it's a battle they want, it's a battle they'll have.

The tricksters, the tricked, and the living.

This is autism

I've actually talked about this sort of thing before. On Tumblr, I have a "This is what autism looks like" post from about a year and a half ago. I'll be reblogging myself to get it out there again. I've written some poems that are relevant, too. They're copied and pasted at the end of this.

Anyways.

What is autism?
It's always a person or a group of people. There is no autism detached from the person- there's no way to split off "this is the autism and this is the person." Any metaphor that tries is going to be a bad metaphor. So I'm not going to do that.
It's also probably a lot of different things, because seriously this isn't specific. There were a lot of ways to meet criteria in DSM-IV-TR. There were 3129 different ways before getting into single criteria that can be met in different ways and known traits that aren't on the DSM list.
Even when the core bits are the same, presentation isn't always going to be the same. It might not even be all that similar.
Autism is better understood as a foundation everything else gets built on (kind of like a neurotypical makeup is a foundation that a neurotypical person's mind/personality is getting built on) than as... probably most of the things I've seen it understood as. Environment and experiences and such are going to affect what happens from there, just like with neurotypical folks (and with allistic folk who aren't neurotypical.)
So what's autism?
It's all the A/autistic people and the people with autism and the undiagnosed who think they're just broken or wrong and the undiagnosed who've gotten along OK. It's all the people whose minds and thoughts and experiences are built and reacted to using an autistic foundation instead of one that's close enough to "average" or "normal" to get called neurotypical.
Autism is people. It's not an outside force stealing them away. It's people, right around 1% of people.

Now have the poems woot.

Anniversary

I stand in front of you.
I tell you exactly who I am.
I am a college student,
And I am Autistic.

And yet, and yet, and yet you assume,
I must be a parent,
I must be writing about my child,
An anniversary of diagnosis must be for my child.
No, it's for me.
An anniversary of diagnosis must bring back sadness.
No, it is a victory for understanding and hope.
An anniversary of diagnosis is a difficult day.
No, I want a cake. (Or ice cream. Ice cream is good.)
An anniversary of diagnosis is a day to reflect.
That much, at least, is true.
But what to reflect on, what to think?
Autism: 0, You: 1?
This is not zero-sum
Defeating autism?
We're not separate.
Remembering that my child (what child? I have no child yet) is still my child?
How could I forget that?
How could a different neurology cause anyone to forget that?


Autism Is

Autism is a word for the ways I will never, can never be normal.
It is also the word for "why this doesn't bother me."
Autism makes me a foreigner in my own country.
It also protects me from culture shock, as I am accustomed to being "other."
Autism makes it harder for me to find friends.
It also keeps false friends away.
Autism makes it harder to take notes in class.
It also means I don't need to.
Autism makes mint, strobes, sirens painful.
It also allows me to stim.
Autism makes oral speech less natural to me.
It also provides my abundance of words.
Autism means challenges.
It also means solutions, if only I am allowed to use them.

Autistic, Queer, Invisible

There is a feminist zine, called Speak. It's looking for submissions, with sex as the theme. Submissions are anonymous, though I suppose one could figure out pretty easily whose this is now that I stuck it on my blog. (Yes, I can do that.) This is what I sent them.

Trigger warning: Access barriers, erasure

I am Queer.

I am Genderqueer.

I am read as a woman.

(Masculine is not neutral.)

(My mix. It is not purely feminine.)

I am Autistic.

I can have sex.

Mostly, I don't want to.

Others do. (Yes, Autistic others, too.)

But.

When I can't recognize flirting,

When I don't know how to begin,

When I don't know- can I touch?

-can I kiss?

-is that a proposition?

Your world, it is inaccessible.

Could I if I wanted to?

Doubtful.

You see me as Other,

A forever-child (except not!)

And sex is not for children.

Autistic, Queer, Invisible.

A Poem About Writing a Poem

Old writing time! This was the result of an 8th grade assignment to write a sonnet.

A sonnet I’ve just been assigned to write,
But what to write of I see not.
And as I think –the lack of time begins to bite.
One doable topic, is all I need, I thought.

Time runs out and it’s sink or swim
“I need a topic,” I do shout.
My chances of finding a topic are slim.
I don’t know what to write about!

“What can I write about?” I ask my mom.
She suggests my sister’s fish,
Then a love poem to made-up Tom.
I’d rather write from the view of a dish!

Here is something I did notice:
It all rhymes- I’ll turn in this.

Yes, I have an odd sense of humor. I wrote my "sonnet" about having no clue what to write a sonnet about. I do things like that on a semi-regular basis, actually, and I have evidence right here that I've been doing it at least since I was thirteen.  My "Autistic People Should..." post was actually about me trying to figure out what to write about. (Hey, remember Autistic People Should and Autistic People Are? Those were actually pretty cool things.)