June #2

Falling Headlong: Autism

the years of curious reading
The Small Outsider

for pleasure and titillation;

to thank the gods it's nothing

to do with me,

this withdrawing from the world,

this other place within a person

that translates into rocking and spinning,

creature shrieks in the night – 

they were comforting

because I was safe.

the one word spoken

by Someone Who Knew

confirmed my every secret fear

and we were tossed down

a specific measured rabbit hole

to a desolate dune landscape

of broken grey quarries

and old entombed cities.

the one-way gate
to the greatest mystery.

— Helen Patrice