Tag Archives: self-acceptance

A Poem Called “Blank blah blah blah no words to express”

Blank blah blah blah no words to express,

by theamazinJ

It takes effort,
It takes comfort,
It takes me,
It takes determination,
It takes a willingness to be honest,
It takes the ability to do,
so why lie or be lied to,
when there is the truth,
when there is the honesty of the truth,
when everywhere we go the truth is behind us,
the truth sets us free,
even when we have done things to hurt,
even when we have done things irresponsibly,
even when we have triggered many people,
even from our own chronic post traumatic stress throughout life,
even with the hurt and pain that we have felt
it doesn’t mean others have to feel that pain too,
it does not mean everyone needs to hear it,
it just means we have to let it go,
It just means we can’t hold on to something just because,
It doesn’t mean that we allow anxiety to take it over
and control it and exasperate the events or what was heard or done that was painful,
It just means that we let it go,
Let it go and move forward,
understand, determine, listen, guide,
sure, many took advantage of who I am,
sure, many misunderstood and misunderstand the person I am,
sure, sure, sure,
it just does not mean everything needs to be about what happened or what was said or what was done,
it’s about believing, feeling, and shutting it out of the mind,
putting it in the back of the mind
to recall once we are lying on our old bed with gray and smiles all around
ready for a laugh, ready to wipe away the tears, and ready to move forward,
for now, it’s time to move forward on the journey to that moment,
it’s time to live the life it was meant to be,
it’s time to think everything about what I want and not so much what everyone else wants or just thinking about everyone,
it’s my life, it’s my art, it’s my films, it’s my poetry, it’s my work as a scholar I am meant to do to make differences,
It’ time to live, it’s time to focus on me, it’s time to de-focus on those past events, those past things I tried, and be in the present,
I am me, so who are you.
I want me, so what do you want.
I crave my talents. So, what are you going to do about it.
I always listen to my own mind. So, what do you think about that.
I study, I read, I paint, I film, I do many things within my studies. So, how do you like them apples?
I mark my journey to the end to the beginning when I am ready. So, what?
I scope the map of my journey and everything I want to do and get done before it’s too late. Hah, are you ready for me? are you ready for what I can do?
I will have a positive life that I want to have. A-HA, why are you laughing?
I know what I am capable of and I know when and how I need support. Think about that.
So, let’s go and do this thing we call life, and live.
Because in the end, it’s all about living while having ups and downs, while maneuvering through obstacles, and working on what I want,
looking forward to the beginning when I am ready, and the journey to the beginning when I am old and gray.
Let’s do this! let’s live! let’s give it our all! And, once and for all, let’s just be the best we can be!
Take care and see you around.

A Poem Called “Is it worth the frustration to be ‘nOrMAL'”

Is it Worth the Frustration to be nOrMAL,

by theamazinJ

Normal
nORMAl
NORmal
norMAL
NORMAL!
I feel the frustration,
is it normal?
Is it supposed to be passing for norMAL?
WHAT IS dammmit, NORMAL?
Normal is…
difficult,
NORMAL is…
frustrating,
NORmal is…
OMG!
NORMAL is…
OMG…I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS!
NORmal is…
Oh my goodness, OMG, Oh my GOD!
NORMAL, what can I say?
NORMAL, it is hard
It’s like very few can pass for it,
yet MANY embrace it.
It’s so very stimulating or in this case,
TRigGERRing to have to pass for norMAL!~~~

NORMAL IS…
hurtful,
especially when I am not NoRMAL,
including my friends who are not NORmal either,
or even whenever I walk down a street
I see MANY struggling to be NorMAl,
NORMAL is a social construction,
it is passing for…
what America wants,
it is passing for…
being non-disabled or NON-NEURODIVERGENT,
also, when EVERYONE is born NEURODIVERGENT,
but only PASS for NORMAL
and embrace NORMALITY
only to
ACCEPT NORMALITY
AND
Oppress The MANY citizens out there who CANNOT,
especially when
you are NEUROQUEER,
OR even when
you are not one of the BINARY genders
when gender is FLUID and is non-binary,
NOT saying I am non-binary, I AM JUST OPEN-MINDED
to everyone’s gender differences and EVERYONE’s iDeNTitiES,
and the self-determination of being WHO WE ARE INDIVIDUALLY,
and being the person we are MEANT TO BE and ARE in this world.
NOrMaL, what the heck is it,
when it’s all about when WHITE MaLE Christians who created the damn word many years ago,
who wanted EVERYONE to conform to THEM,
and who WANTED everyone to be non-disabled, non-neurodivergent, and labelled by IQ.
AND, who also wanted EVERYONE to look, feel, and think the SAME way,
How NORMAL is that when SO many are different races, of different religions,
of different thinking types, of different emotional types, of different FEeLIngs,
OF different concurrences acting at the SAME time,
OR of different lapses of time splitting in their heads,
and of different genders and differences in disability,
BECAUSE everyone can DO it,
NO one is IMMUNE to think differently, WE are CREATIVE which is WHY normal was made,
which is why things are DiFFerent.

Normalizing what?,

by theamazinJ

MORE importantly why WE all make MISTAKES especially with TRY(ING) to NORMALIZE America,
and in many CASES NORMALIZE the WHOLE WORLD, but many CANNOT be NORMAL,
MANY cANNOt think NORMAL, many CANnot feel norMAL
because NORMAL is painful especially when someone is disabled,
especially painful when someone is NEURODIVERGENT
when being NeuroDiVERgent is not VERY embraced
and people want to accept NORMAL as the ‘in’ thing as the BRAINS and the one with IQ,
and neurodivergent as OUT, as the ‘OTHER’, and the one that is WEIRD or FREAK or INCOMPETENT or
STUPID or even the re2379427d,
eVERyone is really neurOdivergent, but many seem to discount it, seem to disregard it, or even THINK SAMENESS is the ‘in’ thing,
when EVERYONE is really different,
everyone is really …
CREATIVE, emoTIONal, lEarnING all the time, brainy, INTELLIGENT, gaining WISDOM everyday, has their own WaY of doing things.
while everyone can …
BREAKDOwn, everyone can..
meltdown,
everyone can…
hit rockbottom to only rise to the TOP,
EVERYONE can…
MAKE a MASTERPIECE OR Make an invention OR make a discovery from within themselves that CREATES connection
and CREATES something with their MINDS even when it is just very small BECAUSE it really is VERY BIG for the world,
just like NORMAL was and just the way NORMAL was created
ESPECIALLY when normal is destructive to a human being’s personhood and just when normal can also construct certain elements of life,
because normal is paining and hurting MANY in this world
our peers who are not of the binary genders like you or I,
our peers who are NEUROQUEER
our peers who are a(sexual) or even sexual,
OUR peers who are mixed race, or not of the same race as you or I,
OR the way me and my peers who believe in different religious or spiritual thinkings,
or how many citizens who are disabled, neurodivergent seem to experience the world differently
even when the disability and neurodivergence is autism,
or even when it is cerebral palsy, down syndrome, or many other different developmental disabilities
because having developmental disability is NOT considered normal and is not considered intelligent and
seems to always associate with judgement, always associates with stupidity and incompetence and not knowing what is right or what is wrong,
because in the end, it’s normal, it’s abnormal, it’s just living, it’s just life.

Normalizing Why?

by theamazinJ

Being developmentally disabled is
being more INTELLIGENT than peers who embrace normality can even fathom,
its’s being more FUN and comical than one can even think about,
AND, is being more empathic and CREATIVE at the same time than any other citizens can even feel and think,
Being developmentally disabled or even have psychiatric disability is a thing, but it does not have to mean the person has to be this normal…
or has to abide by the rules that the leaders of normal created years ago,
Being developmentally disabled and having psychiatric disability is part of being human,
It’s a way that life sets us off, it’s a way to experience the world, and it’s a way of being intelligent differently,
since anyone of us can have psychiatric disability because it’s part of human experiences,
and developmental disability is a thing that happens to many, but not all, as a way to know being human is IMPERFECT,
and being human is MORTAL, and being human, everyone will have different ways to express the genes of the human race,
EVERYONE is GREAT, everyone is GOOD, and EVERYONE thinks different, and MOST importantly NORMAL was just a story or concept created but does not have to be embraced by anyone.
I am male, I am neurodivergent, I am autistiC, I am Jewish, I am spiritual, I am a artist, I am a beginning filmmaker, I am a scholar, I read many books and articles, I am a poet,
I am a person of science, I am many identities, I always have my own mind,
and most importantly,
I am J.

A Poem Called “A Serene Beautiful Path”

A Serene Beautiful Path,

(A poem inspired by many readings I have read all throughout my life. I started writing this poem when I read Merri Johnson’s Girl in need of a Tourniquet and Bram Stoker’s Dracula this semester at CUNY SPS.)

by theamazinJ

My humanity is there,
I set off to the goal,
I pain, I hurt, I erode
through sudden Goethe,
I deserve the ending,
I sacrifice the beginning,
I figure my mind.
I liberate my flamboyance,
I continue to the
connotation of trials,
of tribulations of
the non-binary world
which is really binary,
of everyone in motion,
love is darkness,
love is spiritual,
love flips houses
to go, to out, to live,
I sacrifice my mind,
I feel the inner monster,
I live the outer inner body
of humanity,
monstrous,
man,
woman,
person,
person?
Person!
I am a person,
being virtuous, being good,
being a good guy,
being a good gal,
being a good person,
being the body of dense creation,
my creator made me,
he made everyone,
I am not understood,
my good intentions of bad moods and emotions.
I love animals,
I love my love,
Is there really a normal?
What is normal?
Compulsions of normal,
acting on you,
disliking on me,
fairly with justice.
Deviating toward death,
WHAT IS DEATH?
WHAT IS LIFE?
Death, Violence, Deviant, or NOT,
disgust or whack,
Dracula,
Dracula,
Dracula,
Beetle BeetLe BEETLE
JUICE JUICE JUICE,
Everywhere I go,
Everywhere I look,
I see my future,
I find myself in the present,
I walk through the curtain,
I rise from my chest,
and I have a past in the background.
Everywhere I go,
Everywhere I see,
Everywhere I want to be,
It really is the light approaching from the darkness
in the distance,
and everywhere I go, everywhere I look,
AND EVERYWHERE I HIDE,
I SEE my dreams becoming REALITY,
I SEE my life BECOMING A THING!
I SEE that NOTHING WILL STOP ME!!!!
BECAUSE I am going to SUCCEED,
I AM GOING TO do what I WANT,
I AM GOING TO WORK ON MY OWN,
building my CAREER,
building my CREATIVITY,
BUDDING my LIFE into reality,
AND LIVE THE LIFE I WAS MEANT TO LIVE.
Forget about darkness,
forget about what you think,
forget about your thoughts,
BECAUSE the only thoughts that matter
are the thoughts IN MY HEAD,
and support ME from that.
It’s probably what Bram Stoker meant,
or even the Girl in need of Tourniquet needed,
or what Audre Lorde needed,
or even what Ron Kovic needed as Born on the Fourth of July,
It’s all about living until our last breath,
and it’s all about living and ENJOYING every minute of it
with EVERYONE supporting each other WITHOUT telling or saying anything,
because we all have our OPINIONS,
WE all have our SEPARATE BELIEFS,
AND WE ALL HAVE WHAT IT TAKES
to do what we WANT and NOT what OTHERS say.
Nothing about us, without US,
I say, I say.

A Poem Called “Autistic Rage”

Autistic Rage,

(Written after reading the article Blind Rage, in response to Helen Keller, by Georgina Kleege)
(This poem is something that is in the works for a poetry anthology I am doing for class for my masters program at CUNY. I am working on doing annotations for each part of this poem that requires an annotation which is why there is numbers associated with certain lines as well as 4 other poems I chose to annotate as well. I also used gender neutral pronouns so as to not identify. Since my natural tendency in writing is short bursts of words rather than longer sentences from my own Autistic language which is my own Autistic Poetics and my professor likes that. And, I will be filming this poem this week for my non-credit film class.)

by theamazinJ

My feelings of disability 1
come from the distinction of an honor,
but to many a tragedy,
from the way we see people generally,
to the way we converse,
from Kanner’s views of autism,2
to Asperger’s views of psychopathology, 3
to the beauty of movement
from the ideas of Tourette’s4
spilling out my gut,
without my insincere moment,
from the way Elephant Man5
physically felt stigmatized
and ostracized to the
way my moment of
my life lives.
To the way I fill the moment
of my influence,
to the moment of
how the intersection of
autism and Tourette’s
go hand in hand
even with dyslexia6
with the acts of disability
in American culture.7
My life is good,
stop and wonder,
my life is good,
I don’t care what you say,
I hurt,
I pain,
from your misunderstandings,
from your lack of empathy,
of your arrogance,
of your immaturity,
of your future of me one day,
when I surpass you.
I hurt,
I pain, I forgive,
I forget,
I argue,
I say,
Get Out,
Get Real,
Get images,
Get going,
I am me,
So get the hell out.

My disability of autism
is interesting.
My disability of anxiety 8
is a swirl of energy and rage
to be controlled.
My disability of movement
makes me move differently
than I am and you are.
I move with ease.
I move with fluttering hands and feet.
I fly my hands in the sky with flapping,
I shadow my feeling in the darkness.
I crawl into a hole.
My disability is discomforting.
My disability is not accepted.
I feel over anxious from
the already anxiety I feel
from society.
I feel I don’t love who I am
because I am not accepted
under this social standard, 9
this social construction society created, 10
and under every one telling me without
supporting me.
And, if I don’t want to be told,
that I am not supported by anything.
It’s control.
It’s life giving me serene beauty without
touching the beauty.
I love things, I love animals,
I always and sometimes love people.
I feel conglomerated
by society by the people
around me.
I need to be forgiven for I am,
yet, everyone wants
to change me for who I am right now.
I am, right now.
I cannot just be
I cannot just do
I cannot just say
I want to say
I want to do,
but in reality
i am unforgiven.
I am forgettable,
i am not working
like the way
They is worthy, 11
or
They thinks is worthy,12
or
They thinks they is the Queen,13
or
They
notes them and with pride,14
or
Them
exacerbates who they is
in a low key manner,15
or
They seems better
but really is not,16
or
They moves in to build peace
but cannot really17
or
They talks about sex
but takes it too far18
or
They passes with ease
causing more pain,19
or
the way Them projects who they are,20
or
Them uses their anger to shell out to others,21
or
They thinks the world revolves around them,22
or
how they thinks they can speak with AAC
even saying how proud they are of autism,23
or
even the way they takes on
how others feel and does not know their own,24
or even the way they attempts to
say Autistic men are more likely to be pedophiles
from an article from 2013,25
or how they thinks they can find causes
which they thinks can take away the pain
and cure autism even though that just
causes more pain in order to pass
and not be real,26
or even the way the anti-vaccine movement
thinks they knows everything, but knows nothing.27
or how every Autistic leaders feel,28
or autism researchers think about Autistics,29
because Autistic or not, I feel
humanity is real,
but humanity sucks
from the way we are all judged,
but humanity is not normal,30
and normal is done,
normal is succinct,
normal is seemingly joyous but
with eagerness to feel pain,
to feel suffering, to feel like less than,
but most importantly
feeling jerky,
feeling like a marshmallow,
feeling geeky,
feeling like I don’t belong
and everyone can move me
in the direction they want,
and my anxiety soars everyday,
every night,
and cannot stop
because everyone tells me and
no one wants to be told
and no one supports, but support is
good is better and helps a person
achieve self-determination,
achieving identity of largeness in my hands,
my long legs ache, my arms are in pain,
and I just feel like embarking on something special
as every other human being
is special, is unique,
and not more, not less,
and a part of the life
we live today.
It’s the way Neurotribes was written31
and even with In A Different Key,32
because Autistic history is real33
when it is really
the history of the Human race.34

(Happy Autism Acceptance Month 2017!)

The poems in order will be :

1) Autistic Rage poem
2) I am not retarded poem
3) I open at the close poem
4) Tyrant and Martyr poem
5) Poem of Apologies

(Now each poem will have annotations based on the readings I read this semester with other readings (books, articles) I have too.)

A Poem Called “Mourning”

(Trigger Warning: the painful moments may trigger some.)

Mourning,

by theamazinJ

Violence,
hurt,
physical pain,
emotional pain,
murderous draining of blood,
seeping from our veins abstractly,
the pain persists with everyone,
it persists in the community,
it persists in segregated settings,
it persists with disabled people,
it persists with black people,
it persists with jewish people,
it persists with muslims,
it persists with women,
it persists with differences in gender and (a)sexuality,
it persists because of eugenics,
it persists cause of American society today
especially with Donald Trump,
especially with the dark past history of America,
especially with this construction from Francis Galton,
the pain hurts even deeper and darker than that,
from the deepest roots of human history,
many people are in pain,
many people are in mourning
the lack of empathy from the current social construction
of how many individuals in mainstream society don’t understand,
of how many don’t want to understand,
and how we cannot get it right,
we cannot listen to each other,
of how no one has true understanding
unless the person has experienced
or flipped to that side of the coin,
and that only happens when we allow ourselves to experience,
when we just experience it,
and we begin to heal,
heal through humor,
heal through communicating,
heal through love,
heal through laughing amongst each other,
in the community and not in congregate settings separated from the community,
because it’s all about us,
it is all about life,
it’s not about mourning,
it’s not supposed to be a dark life,
it’s supposed to be about seeing the light,
seeing the positive sides of life,
experiencing and loving who we are
so we can experience and love everyone around us,
without causing pain to us or anyone else
regardless of how much pain we already have,
it’s about letting go and moving forward,
It’s Nothing about us, without us,
it’s just about love,
can you go back in time,
to a place in your mind,
to the one you knew you that you just couldn’t find,
when it’s said and done it’s not about losing love,
it’s not about the pain,
it’s about gaining love from everyone we meet,
taking in everything, but not taking too much pain,
the mourning of this day,
heals us when we can laugh instead of cry,
when we can let go and celebrate lives lost,
when we can let go and celebrate our own life,
and when we can just let go and move forward,
Mourning is more about how we laugh until we had to cry
and say to each other,
I love you no matter what,
I love you for who you are or who you were,
people touch, and it lives in our lives forever,
so, let’s move forward
and let’s meet halfway,
made of memories,
believing in destiny,
every moment is about getting living every moment
in the way we stick to each other in the community
regardless of impairments, regardless of what labels society gives us,
and we are stronger when we have given up,
given up on our egos,
given up on our arrogance,
and lived for the humility of humanity,
remembering and always never forgetting,
disability is a major part of human life,
so don’t neglect yourself, don’t neglect others,
and begin to accept the diversity in everything,
the diversity of life, between where we are
where we identify, claiming neurodivergent and claiming disability and even claiming neurotypicality,
finally,
it does not matter what people claim,
it just matters to be happy,
and live knowing
normality is real, but normality is accepting life the way it is,
in the living years
say it loud, say it clear,
so don’t blame the ones before, presently, or after,
just laugh with perfect humor among each other,
no matter what, no matter who,
when nothing about us, without us
really does matter.