for anpeyo brown
autism: from the Webster’s New Universal Dictionary and the Random House Encyclopedia
in psychology a state of mind
characterized by daydreaming
say rather
i imagined myself
in the place before
language imprisoned itself
in words
by failure to use language normally
say rather that labels
and names rearranged themselves
into description
so that what i saw
i wanted to say
by hallucinations, and ritualistic and repetitive
patterns of behavior
such as excessive rocking and spinning
say rather circling and
circling my mind i am sure i imagined
children without small rooms
imagined young men black and
filled with holes imagined
girls imagined old men penned
imagine actual humans
howling their animal fear
by failure to relate to others
say rather they began
to recede to run back
ward as it were
into a world of words
apartheid hunger war
i could not follow
by disregard of external reality,
withdrawing into a private world
say rather i withdrew
to seek within myself
some small reassurance
that tragedy while vast
is bearable
