Hi all,
I found out three years ago that I was autistic. It explained a lot but it came with its own struggles.
After hearing "Hi Ren" by Ren, I was inspired to write this poem.
I was encouraged to share it so I hope you like it.
Is This Me?
So maybe I should start at the very beginning?
Or the day I worked out exactly what was missing?
Cause the difference is great, I discovered so late,
that the me that I knew, the me through and through,
was not me at all but a mental shortfall.
I lived for so long, not knowing what was wrong,
Believing I was wrong, not quite playing the same song,
So I learned to keep my thoughts inside, like Dr Jekyll’s Mr Hyde,
And despite the work, the endless work of my relentless masking,
It still broke through and let me down, I still can hear them laughing.
But now I know it wasn’t me, or was it me, it’s hard you see.
The lines are blurred, my thoughts absurd and wildly contradicting.
I see it now, but know not how, to beat what I’m predicting.
The dark and heavy veil inside I’m having trouble lifting.
Like sitting on the edge of life and watching it pass by.
Like playing football in the dark, or watching others in the park.
Existing, thinking, often sinking, laying down, deliberating.
Looking for the definition, the simple truth of my cognition.
I can’t decide if I’m the bug, the mental indiscretion,
The sum of my parts, always left on the side, with one infernal question.
Is all that I am and all that I feel on this cold uneven keel,
Just a pessimistic, deterministic, odd simplistic autistic?
But the way that I feel, doesn’t match what is real.
I know what you see is not the true me, cause
I laugh and I cry and I love and I’m loved.
I live and I learn and I give and I yearn.
So I might be quite strange on my spectral range.
And I don’t know what’s me on this turbulent sea.
But I am what I am, and I do what I do.
So all that I ask, is you give me a chance,
to feel normal!
