You Tell Me I Don’t Look Autistic

by Johanna Magin

 

You don’t look half as hungry as you really are.

       You open wide the mouth of certainty, and I

wonder where to drop my pennies. I wake each

       morning a stranger to the world, make myself

ready for its assault. The smells and sounds and

       reflective sheen have me curled over;

and the screens — the millions — that screaming

       chortle of blue.

When my eyes meet yours, you think

       we belong to the same country, whereas

I’ve spent lifetimes learning your language,

       that admixture of order and what is behind

the order, meant to be known but never stated

       clearly. And mine: fulsome and riotous,

you wouldn’t come near.

You say I am long to arrive at my point.

       The mind is a funny creature, is it not?

Alabaster made swift in a single gunshot.

       Rhizome that shifts and sings in the soil,

many tendrils at a time.

I have travelled in a straight line once or

       twice. You say the tests will do their job,

sort us into bins and make good on the

       promise. But the fools always knew

it would destroy us, that the world would

       go under before we discover another

geometry.

I show you my symbols and you point

       to a gaping hole in the sky, meant

to trick us into thinking that meaning

       has a mouth, the clouds gathered round

a blue that isn’t really blue, a face we’ve

       worshipped without even knowing it.