I remember systematically breaking down a brick of Styrofoam
to its individual beads making a plastic blanket in the Living Room.
I remember organizing my foods by texture and colors until
high school, I cooked for myself so I wasn’t a burden.
I remember coming home from school to see my mom
crying, I didn’t know what to do.
I remember being told “You walk like fucking a fairy” by my
dad. Luckily I was incapable of understanding metaphors as a seven year old.
I remember being told I had a funeral to go to
tomorrow. I couldn’t get over the fact that I had to miss school to go.
I don’t know, what to pay attention to, there’s a
thousand people here I have never seen before.
I don’t understand, why everyone is crying. Why am I the
only one not crying?
I don’t know her name, I was told it on the drive here
but I forgot it when I realized how squash shaped the minister was.
I don’t know why my mother would ask me to go look at a
stranger’s formaldehyde ridden corpse. I guess she’s Mom’s Grandma
I don’t even recognize the majority of the emotions
that these geriatric patients are wearing.
I think they call is somber or something it wasn’t in the emotional chart that they used
to show me as a kid.
I think I can replicate it, sure. But what would the
point be? I shouldn’t stand out when the table being used for her body is going
to be a part of a buffet line later this week.
I think my older brothers are crying now too. Now,
that’s a little unnerving. They shouldn’t be, they don’t know her either.
I think I should be crying, but only because a hundred
others are. I don’t feel anywhere close to it.
I think it might be disingenuous if I were to sit here
and pretend to cry over a dead woman solely because our DNA matches to some
capacity.
It’s just a stutter— I have no physical memory of ever
having one, yet that’s the only symptom my family reminds me about
It’s just a stutter— at two years old calculators were
my favorite toy. I was never informed that that was atypical.
It’s just a stutter— I grew to like fish because they
were one of the few silent pets. I would sit. Any sudden noises made me cry on
instinct.
It’s just a stutter— I even organized a funeral
because I considered it disrespectful to put something I loved down the toilet.
This was the only funeral I’ve cried at
It’s just a stutter— I was kept in standardized
classes because they said I was “Gifted”. It wasn’t until I was 16 when I learned
the actual diagnosis I was given.
Now the world past and present makes a lot more sense
to me. I still can’t perceive somber emotions though.
Now I have avoided Styrofoam out of fear that I’ll be
unhinged and ravenous spreading beads across the globe.
Now I still don’t know if my ignorance to my
differences was a gift or a curse. It’s difficult to trust my own perception
still.
Now I blend in, no one really knows except the special
education majors that know how to snuff out the specific signs.
Now I realize that I am simply lucky. There are
millions and millions of people that were given the same title as me, but they
are incapable of forming a voice.
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