Autism Poems

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Child in the mirror,
Insubstantial,
Are you really there?
Lost inside their lies;

You have lots of friends,

The ones that throw tanbark?
And cheer when you run away,
The ones that hide when you come out to play?

He died in peace,

The rose you placed in his frozen hand,
Blood seeping through his blue veined fingers,
The poem you wrote,
The first poem you ever wrote,
Did they lie to you?
Did he die in pain?

You look beautiful,

Dance in your empty circle.
10 feet wide,
To the music of their mockery.
Destroyed by their indifference,

You’re special,

Slapped in the face,
Goaded beyond endurance,
Blamed for wrongs you never committed,
Betrayed by anyone you ever trusted,
As though you couldn’t hear or see them,
Sneering triumphantly
When they stabbed you in the back.

Alone in the library,
Advanced beyond your years,
Wizened by pain,
Naive in your isolation.

Laughing children playing a game,
You’re the victim,
A necessary sacrifice,
Dead child walking.

When community decides
Reaction in arrogant deride
We different ones
Can reach deep inside
Where universes spin
In wild creative wonder,
Where lightning thought
Can fracture reality asunder.
It is a delight to perceive
Another mind where ideas dance,
Where strangeness stalks,
Where wild creatures out of chance
Entice, and a weird spirit walks.
But this encounter is a rarity
And this world is replete
With fascinations otherwise.
Even in loneliness we can be complete.

Can thoughts pertain,
To dreams of coloured rain,
When they should remain,
Not idle -
But focussed on the same
Things that are expected,
And would otherwise be neglected.

Every day I feign,
A girl called by my name,
Successful, but for slip-ups
Revealing underlying strain.
And friends in confusion,
Try to comfort a wavering illusion.

My loss is my gain,
Thus I struggle on in vain.
But the farce I once rejected,
Allows me to be accepted,
So I stand corrected.

I must live in self rejection,
While I search for new direction,
For I cannot be the same –
And they cannot stand the rain.

Our lives are happenstance.
We have but just one opportunity,
One rewarding lucky chance
Whatever our community,
To spin through time and space
And feel the thrill of gravity,
Glory in the Sun upon our face.
Ignore silly social depravity.
The bounty is to be alive.
It's more than interaction with a faction
That ignores both time and fascination.
Every instant seeing, feeling, gives us traction
Into living, wondering, discovering, integration.

At a hard plastic chair.
In a darkened college room.
(warm heater)
I am the only one here.
It occurs to me how isolated I am from other people.
Just me here and nobody.
Me and nobody.
We make a good partnership.
I can delude myself and nobody can accompany me.
I can feel gut wrenching depression, and nobody can make me happy again.
I can sit quietly and nobody can love me.

Maybe I should marry nobody.
We could have a long and fruitful life together living in an empty house.
Nobody would give my life meaning and purpose

I am starting to love nobody.
I see myself reflected in nobody.
(In fact, as we emulate each other more and more closely)
I am starting to become nobody.

If I am nobody and nobody loves me then nobody could be everything I desire in this world.
I’m smiling and sitting on a partially squashed jumper as I sigh over nobody.
I should go to bed and dream about nobody.
Goodnight nobody.

Other people are
Simply that.
We fabricate them out of incident.
Sight and sound
Merely indicate they're around,
Simple or profound,
Thin or fat,
Sensitive, or by far
Just callous idiots on the continent.
We cannot know, only suppose
What these others are.
No one knows,
Not even they who think
They have an inner clue.
They are a mystery,
A clouded history
Of who they are,
Why they do.

These poems aren't directly about Asperger's Syndrome, but I'd like to share them anyway:

The Phone is Off

The phone is off -- no communication
No nonsense in my ears, no drivel
No talking, no chatter, no nothing.
No SIM card -- I threw it on the fire
No alarm call -- Ding Dong the Phone is Dead!
I am free, beyond all point of reach
All hope of contact lost -- I am at peace.
I am at leisure, free of obligation
Free of pressure, free of duty
Free to see, free to think, free to breathe.

You Think

You think you know the story
You think you know the score
You think you got the wisdom
The music and the floor.
You think you got the summer
The sunset and the breeze
You think you got the house, the kids
The me down on my knees.
You think you got the know-how
You think you got the cool
You think you want the show-down
The battle and the duel.
You think you want the sports car
The limo and the jet
You think you want the high life
The slamdunk in the net!
You think you know the story
You think you know the score
You think you got the wisdom
The music and the floor.

Simon Henstock, 2009