Tag: autism

What My Family Never Talked About by Sue Ellen Thompson

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What My Family Never Talked About

Why my mother came home from the hospital
with a flat stomach and put the bassinet
back in the attic. When my Aunt Ginna
divorced Uncle Charlie—they showed up together
at family gatherings for decades, so how
would we know? Or the summer my sister
was planning her wedding—what went on
in the spare room so late at night
with our handsome Australian houseguest.
When my nephew first started walking,
he held a coat hanger straight-armed
in front of him, as if he were dowsing
for water. But no one ever mentioned
autism or suggested that his behavior
was anything other than fine.

If I asked my mother—gone 22 years
now—to please explain, she would use
the same gesture employed when a fly
dared to enter the kitchen where she
was preparing our dinner—as if to say Nothing
could be less important. Now please
set the table and call in your brothers to eat.

*

Sue Ellen Thompson is the author of six books, most recently SEA NETTLES: NEW & SELECTED POEMS (Grayson Books, 2022) and the editor of The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry (1st ed.). She has won a Pushcart Prize, the Pablo Neruda/Nimrod Hardman Award, two individual artist’s grants from the State of CT, and a Pulitzer Prize nomination. Thompson teaches at The Writer’s Center in Washington, D.C., and received the 2010 Maryland Author Award from the Maryland Library Association.

AUTISTIC EVENING ROUTINE by Tony Gloeggler

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AUTISTIC EVENING ROUTINE

Jesse walks through the living room,
grabs a broom to sweep the floor
before evening routine at 7:30 PM
when he sees mom coming around
the back, her part of the duplex, closing
the garden gate with the leather strap,
walking Oreo. Jesse dashes out the door,
skips across the blinking, Christmas lit porch
and she asks if he wants to come for a walk.
Yes, of course he does. So, go get dressed.
No, Tony doesn’t mind. Jesse hurries, finds
a long-sleeved shirt, socks, ski jacket, sneakers

Mom yells where’s your hat and Jesse turns around,
rushes back through the door, down basement
stairs. I hear whines, grunts, the way he says
where’s my blue hat, I always leave it here, before
I trudge down, ask what’s going on. We both start
looking, run all around the house. I say maybe
we left it on the bus. He says no on bus, makes
louder sounds. Mom comes in, searches too. When
we give up, she asks me to write information down.

We sit at a table. I ask for a few sit and breathes,
slow deep breaths please, then I print out big block
letters while reciting blue hat lost, blue hat gone,
goodbye blue hat, that’s it in my calm, level tone,
not my annoyed, cranky, end of the day voice. Just
put the orange one on, the one with polka dots and snow
flurries, they’re all the same. Jesse. do you even
like the dog? Jesse speed reads the note, pushes
it away, gets louder. I write down new hat tomorrow.
He says no tomorrow, stomps his feet. Me, mom,
exchange looks, worry an explosion’s near: teeth marks
on his forearm, head banging on the floor. She mouths
Target. We shrug shoulders and off they happily go.

Fifteen, twenty minutes, they’re back. He tosses a bag
on the table, a gray hat with a pack of briefs he opens.
Immediately he wants to cut off every tag from everything–
go get your scissors Jess–before anything else. Then,
all the briefs must go in basement bins. When mom asks
are you ready to walk Oreo, Jesse’s answer is a deep,
husky-throated no to show he means business: 7:30,
evening routine, brush teeth. I repeat evening routine,
7:30. He strides away satisfied. I start cracking up. Mom
looks at me funny. I say no walk dog tonight, point at Oreo
who looks like he’s got to pee real bad. Mom starts laughing.

*

Tony Gloeggler is a life-long resident of NYC and managed group homes for the mentally challenged for over 40 years. Poems have been published in Rattle, New Ohio Review, Vox Populi, Gargoyle, B O D Y. His most recent book, What Kind Of Man with NYQ Books, was a finalist for the 2021 Paterson Poetry Prize and Here on Earth will be published by NYQ
Books in 2024.

Two Poems by Shannon Frost Greenstein

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I’m Not a F*cking Superhero Just for Raising My Autistic Son

I just don’t know how you do it, she says, marveling,
her eyes wide like prey to express
just how awe-struck she truly feels.
You’re a Superhero.

My son, stimming, cavorting happily around the room;
neurodiverse, a bright ray of sun, simply delightful,
and brilliant like a savant;
she sees his meltdowns
his struggle to use the bathroom
declares me to be the Ubermensch
and I resist the urge to roll my eyes.

There is consolation in her voice;
like she is sending up a holy prayer
of thanks
her own children do not have special needs.

It is really condescension, though,
because I am someone to be pitied; because I am someone
with something broken.

But hold up for a second there, Miss Becky Home-ecky.

My son is perfect precisely as he is; he is a joy to nurture and get to know.
There’s no need for heroism,
because loving him
requires nothing superhuman at all.

After all, it doesn’t take an Avenger
to be an Autism mom;
it just takes
a mom.

So save your pity
when you meet my child on the Autism spectrum
because we are both doing just fine.

And I am not a f*cking Superhero
just for raising my autistic son.
I raise my autistic son
because I am his f*cking mother,
and that is just
what mothers do.

*

I Blame George Balanchine

I blame George Balanchine
for decades upon decades
of the most vicious kinds of eating disorders;
for veneration of the waif
at the expense of growing old;
for the toxicity and abuse
that defines professional ballet
and the pervasive legacy of exclusion
that still persists to this day.

I blame Saint Augustine
for the devaluation of women
and the marriage of church and state;
for back-alley abortions
and unresearched stem cells;
for the stigma of sex
just for the sake of sex
and the pervasive legacy of judgement
that still persists to this day.

I blame Nancy Reagan
for propagating systemic racism
as the face of the War on Drugs;
for equating addiction
with weakness of character;
for commanding us all to Just Say No
as crack ravaged the Black community
and the pervasive legacy of an epidemic
that still persists to this day.

I blame Donald Trump
for his epidemiological illiteracy
and killing one million Americans;
for misogyny and bigotry and prejudice and hate
because he is just the worst kind of person;
for humiliating our nation
on a geopolitical scale
and the pervasive legacy of intolerance
that still persists to this day.

I blame them all for the damage they’ve caused
and for reinforcing the otherhood of people like me
and if you agree with anything they have to say
then, you prick, I fucking blame you, too.

*

Shannon Frost Greenstein (she/her) resides in Philadelphia with her children and soulmate. She is the author of “These Are a Few of My Least Favorite Things”, a full-length book of poetry available from Really Serious Literature, and “Pray for Us Sinners,” a short story collection with Alien Buddha Press. Shannon is a former Ph.D. candidate in Continental Philosophy and a multi-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Her work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Pithead Chapel, Litro Mag, Bending Genres, Parentheses Journal, and elsewhere. Follow Shannon at shannonfrostgreenstein.com or on Twitter at @ShannonFrostGre.