When I try to sleep, my mind doesn’t rest. It plays its own movies, ones I wish I could turn off.
In a world where words twist and dance, refusing to line up like they’re supposed to, I live. They call me “different,” but I feel like a traveler in a land where everyone else knows the map by heart.
I see numbers and they flutter like butterflies, never settling down long enough for me to count them. They’re vibrant, beautiful, but so elusive. Colors, they don’t just fill spaces; they pulse and move, wrapping around things, making the world look like a painting that’s still wet, still dreaming.
Food is a puzzle, each bite is a piece that doesn’t always fit right. Sometimes it’s too much, sometimes not enough, and the textures… they can be a symphony or a cacophony.
I have rules, my own rules, like the way I have to step on a crack in the sidewalk three times before I can pass it. It makes sense to me, it’s the rhythm of my world. It’s a whisper that says, “All is well,” even when the outside hum says otherwise.
When I try to sleep, my mind doesn’t rest. It plays its own movies, ones I wish I could turn off. Eyeballs, like marbles, split and spill over the darkness behind my eyelids, and I try to wash them away with my thoughts, counting the seconds until they disappear.
Dad watches me, his brow often folded into a map of concern. He tries to understand, tries to navigate my world, but the compass doesn’t point north in my universe. He’s a lighthouse in a stormy sea, and I’m the ship that can’t quite find the way to the harbor.
But there’s beauty here, in the chaos. There’s music in the patterns, stories in the swirling colors. And I’m learning, slowly, to share those stories, even if I have to use a paintbrush instead of words, even if I have to dance instead of speaking.
It’s a strange, swirling, beautiful world. And I’m here, trying, living, being.