My Super Power

What is it to be visible?

To be among the typical?

To be seen and heard,

Listened to and understood?

What is it to be invisible?

To be looked at and yet unseen?

To over-explain and yet remain,

A mystery?

I can hear them say it's all in my head,

Exaggerated.

They don't see, can't see.

Without a gash the gnawing pain,

Is simply something I'm imagining.

If I try harder, will they listen?

If I talk louder, will they hear?

Or will their ignorance and disbelief,

Echo in my brain as I leave?

To avoid the inevitable rejection,

I make myself empty and become a phantom.

Abandoning myself to mirror another;

More concerned for their comfort,

Than for the ways that I suffer.

And so I live as invisi-girl;

Who laughs and smiles,

And hopefully masks,

So they aren't forced to see,

And nobody asks.

But why must I be invisible,

To make others comfortable?

Why is it better for them when I’m smaller?

Quieter,

Imperceptible?

Am I really invisible?

Not when it comes to taxes,

Or the census.

Not when someone needs help,

Needs someone to listen,

Needs someone to see them.

I exist in those moments;

During the fleeting seconds when I lay down,

So others can cross the puddle,

And keep their own shoes dry.

I’m visible when I'm useful,

When I am helpful,

When I please others.

But I disappear when I’m authentic,

And unapologetically me.

I'm an inconvenience and a nuisance,

It's safer to remain unseen.

Conditioned to hide,

To be ashamed that I'm autistic.

Chameleon or die;

The standard expectation of an allistic.

Invalidated and unsupported.

Easier to hear I passed,

Than allow me the privilege of visibility.

Left with a phone number to call,

When the void in me becomes,

An unbearable obsidian agony.

1 800, please give me a reason to stay.

I’m visible to those volunteers,

Or to strangers just learning my name.

Visible to the passerbys whose piercing eyes,

Perceive more than those whose lives,

Are tied up with mine.

I'm visible on the page.

My words immortalize a legacy;

To be forgotten through the ages,

And found after centuries.

Only then to be seen,

By others who know invisibility.

She was ahead of her time,

The masses will say.

Such a shame no one listened,

Such a shame...

Anyways, that reminds me;

Last night,

Did you see the game?