Beaconless

Did you see the news,

A man disappeared on the coast the other day and -

Wait,

Did I tell you?

I’m training for an open water swim.

I’m going to get one of those tow buoys,

Like an attachable beacon,

So I can’t disappear

In the murk of the lake.

Sometimes I think

My mind is a dark lake,

Beaconless.

I can disappear there too,

Go missing in this or that cove.

Do you remember how much I loved the Sea Cove

Summers growing up?

The sweet salt air,

The endless dreams of the ocean.

My dream is the ocean,

To live beside her -

Open horizons,

Endless possibility,

But focused too,

Tide in,

Tide out,

Tide in,

Tide out.

FOCUS.

Yes, focus, you say.

The man – how did he disappear?

They said he was walking to the beach,

But then he vanished.

He never quite got there.

I never quite get there.

I never quite make it to the ocean.

I always get lost along the way,

Taken hostage by the dark depths,

this cove or that.

_____________________________________________

Author’s note: This poem is meant to be a brief picture of the reality of a neurodivergent person. It was written based on a conversation I had the other day, where my own neurodivergent mind took me into directions that made no sense to my neuro-‘typical’ conversation partners, and so left me feeling idiotic in their eyes. (Note: I don’t like to use the word neurotypical – my brain is typical to me, so why do they get to be the ‘typical’ ones?). The poem is my expression of how, in a society that values only a certain type of brain, even small conversations can be alienating for a neurodivergent person; how the endless trains of thought in some neurodivergent minds can take one hostage in an environment where narrow focus is what is valued; and how these can even cloud one’s dreams of the future.