Style: Poem.
Statement: When you're neurodivergent it feels like nobody is able to understand you, that everyone is forming relationships and you're just left to watch. I wrote this poem when I was watching. I hope you'll understand a part of me through it.
Once there was a boy with a face like ocean waves
When he smiled, they split open at the middle and light shone through.
When he cried, a whirlpool opened and the coral flashed bright red
A lovely face can stretch to much proportion, but most faces he possessed were on the inside:
The anglerfish and creatures at the bottom of the well
A storm may rage outside but on the inside quiet waves lapped at the fish, and seaweed gently swayed
The ones with different face molds asked him; "Boy, why are your eyes like thunder? Have we inquired upon the ocean's wrath?"
But the boy held no anger for the gods. His thunder was a cackle of joy, the only way he felt at home was under storm clouds
He wondered what mysteries another's seas betrayed
The sunny day's shore, the shallow pool, the patch of rocky salty mist
What secrets laid beneath the waves?
He loved the shallows more, for the boy with many faces could not swim, and yet he wanted to explore the ocean floors
The ones with different face molds asked him; "Boy, come along! We know you can, just join us in the open sea."
But there are many things he couldn't do, the face-full boy
His fingers trembled under the weight of aquamarine mist and tight, tight choking foam
the time, the noise, the blinding lights and endless depths beneath his feet
This beauty was his death
From under the mermen the seafoam turned to candy and parted like a mother's hand
the boy's many faces weighted like bricks, unmade for a world of porcelain and mask
Those beautiful, hideous faces which falsely flashed and cackled
He went down like a rock into the depths, where bones of other face-full creatures rotted in silence
The boy despaired not, for as frightful as it all was, as hopeless
Boats bobbed up and down on the surface, seeking to comfort the drowning mass
Perhaps he was never meant for the depths of sea, and there perhaps his heart will remain
But he'll be ready when he comes back to the shallows
And maybe he will find somebody waiting for him at the shore
Same eyes, same face, same way of being
All faces flashing back
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