Twelve years not knowing
But all the signs are showing
I don’t understand these things called emotions
But when I get hurt they make a commotion
You tell me to look at your eyes when you are talking
And to keep the same stride when you are walking
I don’t understand why that’s normal
It seems like something more formal
I question myself and if I am broken
And everyone wonders what I said after I have spoken
I use too many big words
I’m not trying to be smart that’s just how my brain works
I’m not special, I’m different
But every time I try to explain it comes out incoherent
My brain going this was and that
But not understanding social cues makes me a brat?
Repetition. Repetition. Repetition.
My daily routine becomes a mission
I can’t just “get over” my strong passions
But they keep saying it and my heart crashes
Living in constant anxiety
People’s questioning piles more on me
Happy; arms flail
Sad or angry; a tsunami wave I’m trying to sail
I love all my friends
I’m loyal and it hurts when our relationship ends
Letting things go is so hard
And little things leave me scarred
Even parents don’t understand
I’m off in my own land
Just stop trying to intervene
I want to be a normal human if I am even going to be seen
I am not defective
I have a different perspective
Stop with all this misinformation
I am still a human creation
Can I just tell people without being treated like an outsider?
Maybe I could but I would then be an outlier
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140,121 Literary Works • 673,028 Reviews
This poem really hit home for me because my brother is autistic. You've really described what it's like for him. I hope when people read this poem, they realize what it's like to be autistic. They realize the troubles and hardships people go through. I can tell you really poured your heart into this poem. I read another poem by you and was absolutely blown away.
Keep writing.
My sister is autistic and sometimes it is hard to understand what she is going through. Mainly because I am not dealing with her illness. I understand that she has social backwardness and that she doesn't know what's appropriate to say to people. when I read this it made me understand much more. thanks for writing this. I feel like I understand much more now.
Thank you! I was originally making the poem to express how I felt because when I would explain to people nothing made sense. So I'm glad this poem made sense to the people who have read it.
This is such a heartfelt poem, I have a brother and a cousin that are autistic. There are so many struggles and I won’t say that I know what it feels like but I can understand parts of it. Overall I am very impressed with the structure and rhyming of the poem, it is very artistic! In my opinion, autistic people are generally very good people and are so brilliant with their logic skills! It is a very good poem and very emotional! I would like to hear more poetry like this!
This is such a heartfelt poem, I have a brother and a cousin that are autistic. There are so many struggles and I won’t say that I know what it feels like but I can understand parts of it. Overall I am very impressed with the structure and rhyming of the poem, it is very artistic! In my opinion, autistic people are generally very good people and are so brilliant with their logic skills! It is a very good poem and very emotional! I would like to hear more poetry like this!
Hey FireEyes,
WOW this is a powerful poem! It's so raw and it's so apparent how close to home this hits for you. I love the emotions throughout and the frustration and the overall flow. This rhyme scheme almost seemed like Slam Poetry and that's hard to write well, but I think you did a great job of it!
If you're not familiar with what slam poetry is, here is a great intro to it. Basically, it's poetry that is meant to be performed out loud rather than simply being read. And I think you've got a really nice cadence that would lend itself to that well.
Here's one place that the flow felt a bit off. I know you're trying to rhyme the "formal" with the "normal" in your previous line, but that line felt a bit clumsy and too-wordy for the flow. You can play around with it during your revisions. Maybe even something like
"Why do you need me to be so formal?"
idk, something to play with.
O o f this is a powerful line <3
(although you've got a minor typo here. I think you mean either "are making" or meant to remove the "are" from the sentence)
Honestly, circling back to the poem as a whole, I am still just so impressed with this work. I suspect I'm on the ASD spectrum (don't have any diagnoses to verify, but a lot of the symptoms fit) and this spoke to me on such a deep level with not understanding social cues and dealing with rudeness just because people refuse to understand that I can't understand them. This is such a personal topic and you handled it with so much grace, kudos to you!
The only overall critique I have is that I think you could really benefit from leveraging punctuation to your advantage. In poetry, punctuation is obviously a stylistic choice, and if you feel like this flows better with only the question marks then absolutely keep it that way. But there are some lines where I think you could make them a bit more powerful by adding punctuation. For example:
This was a great line! I like the repetition of the word repetition, that really drives it home. But what if you had something like:
Repetition. Repetition. Repitition.
To really drive home the point, you know? It's not a single sentence with multiple words. Make it loud and clear that this is an identical, day in and day out, need for identical-ity. You could also add in italics or bolded or underlined words, too. For example your "emotions" you could have be emotions or something to really emphasize particular words.
Overall, though, excellent poem! I HIGHLY enjoyed reading this and look forward to more from you <3
Keep writing!
~Shady
Thank you. I will take those suggestions to mind.