My window
Keeps growing
Widening towards
The unending future
An expansive view
Into what may be
My window
Keeps growing
Widening towards
The unending future
An expansive view
Into what may be
Noble warrior renowned
Listen to this harrowing sound
Draining cries of earth’s deep sorrow
We will live to see the morrow?
Life is leaking from a crack
Faceless death will now attack
Who has left us silent here?
What foe won’t visibly appear?
We know not who or why we fight
Though we press on in this bleak night
O! That gray would fade from sight
And black be black and white be white!
Last night I watched the original Disney cartoon of Alice in Wonderland and after that, spent some time reading Livvie Owen Lived Here, a book from the perspective of an autistic girl.
My allergies were bothering me, so before heading to bed, I took some Benadryl.
I fell asleep and found myself in a terrifying world where everything was upside-down. Somehow I knew that if I said the right words, everything would be okay again.
But the words were elusive. I tried and tried to say them, to capture them with my tongue. Words and sounds came out, but they were all jumbled and wrong.
I woke up in a cold sweat, mumbling nonsense phrases desperately like a mantra. Stumbling into the kitchen, I poured myself a glass of water and drank it with shaking hands. Still, over and over in my mind, phrases and words strung themselves in circles.
I grabbed a blanket and headed for the couch, not wanting to wake my husband.
I slipped back into my dream as if I’d never left.
All night I waged a war, trying to commandeer my words. They pranced and danced about me, just outside my grasp.
It suddenly struck me this morning- is that what it is like for someone who is autistic? A world upside-down? Filled with backwards things and elusive words?
Is Alice’s nightmarish Wonderland the way our world appears to an autistic child?