Vivid Internal World
a poem
I have a vivid internal world and none of you can compete. I see whole galaxies in my mind. Imagine full scenarios with people from far-off lands. I interpret language—and its full meaning— deeply and quietly. In my bones. In my skin. I yearn for solitude and meaning in silence and listlessness. I love a liminal space. I thrive in darkness. I don’t enjoy the never-ending performance that society requires. They say that autism is a deficit of social s k i l l s — doesn’t make eye contact, can’t stop fidgeting, won’t say the right words in the right order for the people to understand what you are trying to say. They will find the worst meaning possible. They will seek it out. Wrung dry from the bones of your words. Sucking all the meaning from your intentions out through your veins.
So I have largely lived my life inside my head. I have a vivid internal world and none of you can compare. I draw each breath on the hope that when I release it, I will exhale out of present company and into the angel of Solitude’s arms, and rest in listless prayer until the end of time. If there was a way for me to sit on the clouds, I would find it. If I could hike to the tallest mountain and let it take my breath away, I would. But see— I have a very vivid internal world, and I’m lonely. I want people to know that I yearn for understanding. I genuinely, deeply, movingly, meaningfully, desperately, exasperatedly, exhaustingly, painfully desire— friendship, closeness, meaning, non-friction. But all I get is this vivid internal world. This bright, colorful, internal world. Sometimes I see in pastels, sometimes in jewel tones. but always with a fervent desire to be accepted by everyone around me and loved by those near and far.
How much of the autistic experience is just the human experience? It makes you wonder: Who am I without these labels or identities? these lists of deficits? these paragraphs of possibilities? the genuine fear of disability? the endless list of responsibility? Who am I if I can’t be myself? Reaching out for help seems useless, pointless, arbitrary, meaningless. I’m told it’s also somehow rude, hurtful, mean, negative. “Don’t point out the holes,” they say. “Don’t look at the problems in our structure.” “Why can’t you see the forest through the trees?” Because it’s not the forest that hurt me, I say. It’s the tree. It did it. It hurt me. But all they can think about is me burning down the forest. and the fumes, making them cough and cry and yearn and burn— and feel, finally, what I feel every moment I’m not in my vivid internal world.
What do you call this feeling? What do you propose I do? My autistic mind is banned from society. It’s left out in the cold. It’s beaten to a bloody pulp. My hands can’t do the right thing. My words find the wrong ears. My love is too extreme— too suffocating, too needy, too paralyzing. It takes a strong person to sit with me in silence— because this silence is heavy. It bears the weight of a system that has nothing left to give To the people that need it most. It weighs me down in ways I can’t comprehend. I don’t know how to lift this off of my shoulders, so I can spend more time in my vivid internal world. I don’t like this world. I don’t like the one outside my brain. I like the one inside—because I can feel things there. And the feelings are deep, and they move every being that comes in contact with my space and my mind and my vivid internal world. I don’t know if these words make sense or if they even find the right rhythm or the right flow or the right meaning or the right person. But I speak anyway. I reach anyway. I yearn anyway. I dream anyway. I get lost in my vivid internal world.
Sometimes I let another in. Even if it brings me joy, it’s painful— being perceived, being witnessed, being watched, being surveilled— by another soul, by other souls, by a soulless system, by the very thing I don’t want in my thoughts. I left the cesspool of social media behind so I could find my vivid internal world and rest there. It’s hard to let people in.
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I just wanted to say that I see you. Just as you are. ❤️🔥
Such vivid imagery. I too live in the liminal spaces. https://www.lulu.com/shop/jaime-hoerricks/liminal-echoes-the-collection/paperback/product-rm6694r.html?q=hoerricks&page=1&pageSize=4