Ember Nickel Autistics Speaking Day

Ember Nickel has written a poem "Autistics Speaking Day" on Lipogram! Scorecard!

It’d be nice to keep
Silence. To read the words between the faces;
Words flashing by at their own paces
Not changing blurs, forgotten imagery
Or the fall and rise
Of tolerated lies.

To hear and to prevent
Being taken of context,
Crossing invisible lines,
Driving through invisible signs.

And I keep silence up against the hail
Of flashing buzzwords, fads to deride.
Not combative, not even filled with pride
For something nobody can choose
For something nobody can lose.
Don’t break but bend at the derision.

For I am not myopic vision.
Maybe glasses make me look wise
But I’m myself with different eyes.
And we must face obvious facts;
I’m still myself with less ear wax.
Or if my hair is not as mangled–
But some things  can’t be disentangled.

And I suppose it would be nice
To be who I assume I was,
The flippant teenager, because
The flippant teenagers can take
The news of their people’s mistake.
Your race. Your creed. Your land. Your fault
Each pollution and each assault.
And shrug it off, go on their way
And live and hear the same next day
This barrage, current and historical,
Unforgiving and categorical
And do not crack. And do not scream.
And don’t melt down. Maybe not dream–
–Well, everything comes at a price.

I cannot whistle, cannot wink.
My muscles aren’t malformed, I think,
But how to translate, mind to head?
I cannot hear what isn’t said.

I think in abstracts, words and chords and math.
If I were truly the anti-empath
That’d be easier. But instead I care
At least about whether things are fair.
At least when I become attached to text
Whose absence makes me rather vexed.
The voice in the book, or behind the other screen.
The stats for that one pitcher or one batter.
They’re gone and I don’t know why it would matter
Except in the fact that I almost mourn
For the unreal, for what was never born.

So till I learn silence
I sing; no anthems these
But quiet, half-remembered melodies.
The words are new. The words are parodies.
Nothing too modern, fit in a taut line;
If nothing else, at least they’re mine.