Home » Poems » Jade McGlynn » The Weight of it

The Weight of it

Autism
people dress it up with pretty words.
Unique. Gifted. Special.
But they don’t see me when the world is crushing in,
when sound drills holes in my skull,
when light burns my skin
like fire I can’t escape.

They don’t see me
when my body stops moving,
when my voice packs its bags and leaves,
when I am trapped inside silence
a prisoner in my own head.

They don’t see the shame.
The way I beg myself,
just speak, just act normal,
but nothing comes.
And the room fills with stares,
and the air fills with weight,
and I shrink smaller,
smaller,
until I feel like nothing at all.

This is the part they don’t talk about.
The loneliness.
The exhaustion.
The way every day feels like walking through a world not built for me.

A world too bright,
too fast,
too loud,
and I am always too much,
and never enough.
And it hurts.

To know you are here
alive,
thinking,
feeling
and yet unseen.
Unheard.
Unreachable.

So if you want to know autism,
don’t just take the glitter,
don’t just take the slogans.
Take this too.

This raw, aching silence.
This burning skin.
This endless fight to exist in a body and a world that do not meet.
Because sometimes
autism feels like drowning.
And I am just begging for someone to notice that I’m still breathing.

But I am.
I am still breathing.
And every breath I take is a rebellion.
Every quiet return from the storm is proof that I am stronger than the world that tries to swallow me whole.
I am here.
Even in the silence.
Even in the breaking.
Even in the weight.
I am here.

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