Den

Den
by Seven C.


“I can let it all pass me by Or I can get down and try Work it all out this lifetime…” That’s one of my favorite songs, reminds me, very well, that everything could pass me by. But what is everything, though? I live a great life, what else is there? That question haunts me with fear. That question haunts me because I don’t know. All I know is this, all that there is is this, this is life. But what about over there. Why are they laughing at me? Why or how am I so different from them or them from me? We want the same things. Love is angry, and she is beautiful in a way that makes me understand what beautiful is. But I don’t know what she is. My words stiffen and circumvent in the air about her. Maybe I will never know her, maybe I shouldn’t. Is she everything that could pass me by or just a representation of it? I learned from my favorite teachers: cartoon characters on my favorite networks, that love isn’t an esoteric thing. In the same way that I discovered that Courage the Cowardly isn’t actually cowardly, I learned to appreciate how hard I try and how hard I fail. Courage, after all, isn’t the absence of fear but the strength to overcome it. Yes, I’m scared all the time. I fear the cold unknown future and present unbecoming truth: Love doesn’t know me by name, but not because of my Autism. Autism is a part of me, and so is this angry emotion. I give in to both with great acquiescence, for it’s all that I can do. I’m angry, mad as hell, because I can’t lay dormant. I can’t hide. I can’t wait. Life can’t pass me by. She, well she may as well pass me by, but she won’t leave me far behind; my autism, my anger, my love. I’m angry with the lack of reciprocation and the solipsistic nature that I drown in but not with my autism, and certainly not with what she is. I don’t have any anger to share, just love. Everything to fear but everything to gain. I won’t let life pass me by, new life, just as strange and juxtapose to mine. And I won’t let anger tear me down, replace the patience and acceptance I’ve been refused. Everything could pass me by, but before my life, I’m fighting.