This morning, I read newspaper articles about you, and I
rewind. I am sixteen. It is the dark of morning
on a school day. I hesitate
to let feet fall out of a well-worn bed and
connect with hardwood floor. Underneath my heels
my words and tears lie sleeping under
a rug of ragged jonquil, tucked away to dream
between white college-ruled pages hidden between
the covers of a scarlet folder. If you were
to pry the journal from its resting place
or from my paranoid brown teenage fingers,
you would know the reason my feet
wish to sprout wings and fly instead of
connecting with hardwood floor,
or pavement, or tile: they pick on me,
too.

Sixteen. Or fifteen. Or fourteen. It doesn’t matter. I am
always sandwiched between two glass walls,
both of them rigid, algid, and unforgiving. From
both sides, they throw stones: the kids at school
making target practice out of a frizzy-haired mixed girl
who prefers Greek mythology and
building temples of mental worship out of books
instead of malls, clothes, and boys –
and my family lobbing boulders at me demanding to know
why I cannot be normal. I will not know until I am thirty-four
that the thing marking me for target practice is named
Asperger Syndrome and that its double-helix magic
is why I will never be normal. But in the meantime, I write poems,
trying to construct new pavement for my feet to follow
over the river choked with steel-mill chemical blood
and past too many apartments and houses that have seen
my nightmares.

What do your scars look like, Lynda?
Mine look like the edges of the lockers into which
I was shoved. My bruises are
shaped like triangles with ninety degree angles
from the shoulders of water fountains. I have
a detention slip hidden behind my spleen from where
a boy tormented me so bad that I cursed at him
in front of a teacher. And despite the fact that
I have learned to love the autism in my cells,
I still sometimes slide eyeballs to one side like abacus beads
with nimble-fingered precision and aim satellite ears
in the direction of a look or a whisper. I am thirty-five
and I still sometimes wonder if there are spider web rumors
weaved out of my synapses, blood veins, and eccentricities that
glisten in sunlight behind my back.

You took the road out of Escondido, chasing pavements
all the way to Syracuse. My feet found a bridge, crossed
that poisoned river, and followed a scholarship road
made out of yellow brick and which ended in Bowling Green.
But there are blistered off-ramps like nerves
poking out of my spine, each of them leading to
an early exit. Seventeen. Twenty-three. Tombstones
waiting for my name. Forks in highway with
still-born poems and unanswered propositions
lying by the side of the road, not even marked by
crosses or flowers. Do you have off-ramps too?
And if so, do you ever look back,
marveling at how you never took them?

Written 5/21/12
© 2012 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.
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This poem was written for We Write Poems Prompt #106, Fork in the Road. It was also written inspired partially by Adele’s song “Chasing Pavements” and the story of Lynda Frederick, a woman bullied during high school who wrote a poem to her classmates on the Facebook page for her high school class’s 25th reunion. The excerpt I read of her poem online as quoted from the Huffington Post was heartbreaking:

that little girl who came to school with the clothes she wore the day before
instead of asking why.. you picked on her
the little girl who had to walk to school while others rode the bus
instead of asking why.. you picked on her
the little girl who had bruises and was dirty
instead of asking why.. you picked on her
the little girl who was always crying
instead of asking why.. you picked on her

Thinking about her and my own experiences with bullying made me wonder about roads never taken. Sometimes, the off-ramps should be avoided. I almost crashed and burned on the shoulders of a couple of the off-ramps in mine, and I sincerely believe that had it not been for God and my now-fiance’s prayers, I would not be here.

I salute Lynda’s courage in writing her poem, addressing those who bullied her. I have never had the idea nor the courage to address my tormentors from high school, and I don’t know if I will ever address the people who made my life a living hell during that time of my life; instead, I pull some of that shrapnel out of my heart, grind it into ink, and use it for my poems. I hope that more of us come forward, tell our stories, and bring attention to the damage that bullying causes. Perhaps we can find a way to end this problem and the heartbreak it causes. We don’t need anymore young people like Phoebe Prince or Justin Aaberg believing that there is no end or hope in their sufferings.

-Nicole
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“Homecoming” was written last year during NaPoWriMo 2011. It was an attempt to get into Morrison’s head and understand what was behind the events of the Miami incident of 1969. Whether Morrison exposed himself or not (I’m inclined to think not — and even then, there were First Amendment implications had he done so), one thing is clear: he was attempting to wake up and reach the audience on that spring night at the Dinner Key Auditorium. He had been inspired by (and had participated in) some performances of the Living Theatre — that night he tried their methodology to get through to his audience. Unfortunately, it ended in disaster and a court case in which public opinion and political aspirations were stacked against him.

Please check out the Morrison Project website. And while you’re at it, check out the fan artwork and prose pieces there. The site is a labor of love. Whatever you think or believe about Jim Morrison, the site is a must-see.

-Nicole

Autism and Empathy seeks “to undo the myths about autism and empathy that have stigmatized autistic people for so long”. The site features prose and poetry by autistics, family members, parents, and professionals. If you haven’t seen it yet, I encourage you to go and read.

-Nicole

about the endless rooms in my attic brain full of
my memories in Super 8 film rolls coiled up and sleeping
which have been magically appearing since I was a year old;

or the rooms of computer hard drives storing facts, numbers,
and encyclopedia notes numbering somewhere in the octillions;

or the glass-shatter heart that sometimes fractures if I breathe,
or suck in air from the shock or suspended surprise
of someone else’s pain, or when one of my own free-floating
pieces of celluloid with razor blade edges slices my fingers
when I yank it out of my film projector and try
to stuff it back into the canister it escaped from. The handprints

won’t tell you that our family’s collective lips are sealed
about our green strangeness, the unuttered word
that I alone out of the clan speak: autism. The handprints

won’t tell you that I shut my eyes and imagine
the lost, the mute, and the gaunt lit with pain
and pulling razor blades out of their throats
appearing as time-delimited half-tones behind this wall:
Tommy the pinball wizard;
my grandmother made of cedar beams, Indian blood, and elocution;
and a lizard poet, white knuckled, hanging on
to a rollercoaster of pain for dear life,
just to name a few. But the handprints will tell you
that I am human.

I wonder if you can see them: sometimes, I know
that on your side, you only see graffiti-infested concrete,
slapped and glued with headlines about
how our hearts are hollow, how we live as alien mutants
among you in a universe of uncertainty, and how
the word “never” seems to creep into your speech about
us. And you wonder why I erect a glass wall? Some days,
I am forced to pour concrete and hide behind
the wall of cold cinnereal while I listen to the noise
coming from the other side and my eyes
flood and create another ocean: but eventually,
I raze the walls that I construct, and all that separates
me from the world is a stately barrier of glass.

Place your hands on the glass and line them up
with mine: can you feel
the warmth from breath and skin, sweat and
rhythm, blood like tom-toms pounding and marching
all through my body? This is how we can be,
hand to hand, eye to eye, toe to toe, once I feel
I can approach the glass. We touch, and it can melt away
into a membrane, or it can eventually evaporate
and become a ghost that we used to look at each other
through: this is the understanding I need, and the vision
that you need. But as long as you insist on concrete
slapped with pity, pithy headlines, and ignorance,
you will never feel my handprints. You will never
feel my warmth. And you will be convinced that I am a
comic, hollow being that can never feel. And all
the while, I will be drowning in another one of my oceans
behind that wall.

Written 4/2/12
© 2012 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.
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I wrote this to share today because it is World Autism Awareness Day (April 2, 2012). I hope you enjoy the poem and that it gives you another glimpse into my world.

-Nicole
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Stumble It!

(Lakshmi)
I don’t want to ask you about
how wide or how large the hole grew to –
I’d rather not remind you it’s even there
at all. When the white rabbit disappeared
down into the abyss, to the other side,
pocket watch in hand, a dandy’s waistcoat
girt about him like an old fool from sepia days,
we did not bid him goodbye, or Godspeed, or even
tears. Perhaps a veiled middle finger out of his sight,
or a “fuck you” shouted down the hole in frustration
for the pile of undone things he left behind — but that
was all we sent after him into the ether;

(Persephone)
and I wrestle with an arm larger than Atlas’
while Vishnu tries to keep the world turning
slowly in its days, trying not to knock the tin soldiers
off its surface, still trying to be steadfast, or jar
the shooting stars out of the cornflower midnight mantle
above our heads. Your honesty can make the embers
of a heart in someone else’s chest die, or
leap up in conflagration accusation, pointing
flame fingers at you and asking why there are
no tears, no eulogies, no honor for the dead – but how
do you mourn a crotchety old rabbit hypnotized
by his own pocket watch and refusing to drink in
the benevolent sun overhead? You don’t. If
a stone falls out of your shoe, tumbles into the river,
and is carried downstream out of sight, do you feel
any sorrow for the pebble? You don’t. But you
nod, accept the condolences, and shuffle away.

(Lakshmi)
Sita, has the urge to disappear into the ground
faded away? There is no more need to
cover your head with earth, to beg the eye and ear
of Rama to turn to you again and listen. But
the hole in the backyard attracts my questions,
the ones which I dare not ask lest I resurrect
things that should remain dead. Call it a
computer mind seeking data to parse, seeking lenses
to view the world around me through. You have just
broken through, like a mad woman hungry for air
bouncing up to drink the sky – it causes me to wonder
if there is even a hole in the yard at all.

(Persephone)
Earth was made to heal itself,
and holes must eventually swallow dirt
and become silent. I have a glass shatter heart
that knows what it is like to replay soundtracks
and celluloid memories until they wrap themselves
around your neck and close off the air
in your throat. I will not thread the projector,
I will not load the reel-to-reel and strangle you
with tape. The questions can wait, or never
speak themselves into the air. In the meantime,
I will teach you how to leap off the earth
in trampoline fury to grab and drink from a sky
that you have never tasted.

Written 3/28/12
© 2012 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.
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This poem was written for We Write Poems Prompt #100: Poet’s Choice. We were asked to write a brief description for a prompt idea, and then write the poem for that prompt. I must confess, my description will not be brief, but here it is….

-Nicole
—————————————————-
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Stumble It!

Every time I come up for air, I shovel
fistfuls of the sky into my mouth: the blue azure
berry wonderlands, tasting like superman sherbet tinctures
until they fade to nothing, climbing down my throat
to join the oceans behind my navel. When
I am done, there is a smear of sticky sweet
spread across my lips in post-hunger, turquoise afterglow –
and Hades knows where I have been:
and that is what happens on good days.

On bad days, I choke on the soot smut effluence
of steel mill towns, bear the rain’s weeping upon my back
until the weight of its water sorrow tear my robes
off my body, and suffocate in the wake
of Pele’s black smoke rage: then, I fall back to earth,
wing torn, while Icarus weeps at the sight of
my fall. Then, Hades still knows where I have been,
and I return, bracelet chained, consigned to be
a shadow. The sky follows me with her single eye,
sorry once again to see me go.

How do I wash the ashen dirt of those days
out of my teeth? I can drink more oceans,
choke down the wine of the Styx until my belly
becomes numb once again and I forget who
I was. And I wait for the sky to disrobe again and show her
unclouded nakedness, my pupils open-mouthed
and holding back my envy. Then, I rise again, dig my hands in,
and take handfuls of sky love like a vacant-bellied woman who
has never seen death but has only seen springtime,
hungry and erupting in loud, vibrant, virgin births out of
the ground.

The worst days are when the Martians invade – those days,
I choke down green flesh, green fear, and
skies littered with vapid, pale bone horsemen
and meteors of screaming red angry that rip
the chords out of my throat. There is a man
on a lonely Greek island who dreamed of eating a book:
some days, I eat the images in that book
painted across our skies by nonsense-makers wearing
tin foil hats.

But not today. I land on a cumulus and
launch myself from its soft stomach in trampoline madness. I
grab more handfuls of azure, cram them into my
open mouth, and let the blessed blue drip
down my chin. I am greedy and Sapphic, drunk and lusty-eyed
like my pupils cannot hold enough wine. Fuck Hades:
I will have this happiness one more time.

Written 2/23/12
© 2012 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.
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This poem was written for We Write Poems Prompt #95 — the Other Side of Nature. We were asked to describe an aspect of nature, and “the challenge is to use terms not the usual or obvious for that subject”.

-Nicole
—————————————————-
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Stumble It!

If I could lean on a limb of yours
broken away and cast from your body –

a good solid limb, stripped of its old bark
and bearing brown scaled skin underneath –

then my legs would never give way,
and neither would my heart. If one queen
brought her husband to health underneath your uplifted arms,
then why can I not seek healing at your feet? I need relief
from the slow centuries still settled into my shoulders.

I have a million ravens resting upon those shoulders,
stone-carved ravens that cannot tell a woman
apart from a tree. Maybe they think that I will
give them rest, just as you have given me after
every time I became black flight, feathered warnings,
ghastly predictions of fields and hills torn apart
like bread, like breasts, like ribcages, like
families. I have been entrusted with the fields, with the
furrows, with the plow, and even with the life
springing forth from seed or loin –
but all they remember me for is the raven’s flight,
the shadow I cast on the battlefield,
the warning that every sword craves a throat like
teeth that enjoy parting skin to get to the blood underneath.

Fight, or fuck? That is the question
of my existence. I’ve offered my love to
the same, tired passel of young warriors, almost
lulled to death myself from the repetition – and
the story is always the same: they refuse
my love. They see me and their blood freezes to a
slow infinity instead of running red and hot, like
the passions from Pele’s skin. They think that
I always wear raven feathers and
make love to swords – and they love their swords
more than a warm refuge inside the ancient tunnels.

So, dear plane tree, will you hold me
with your arms again? I tire of
warrior promises and warrior rejections. I was closet-born
this time around, and I crave the sun, the air,
the soft new grass under an unshod soul, and
your sure, steady limbs. Saturn, my father this time,
knew how to swallow, knew how to kill trees,
knew how to build closets and lock daughters inside
their wooden bellies – but he knew nothing of
heartbeats, color, or sun soaking into tree bark skin
and limbs lifted up to give thanks to the sky. And he knew
nothing of your arms, which have held me when
he was absent, counting time and swallowing my siblings. I am
tired of seducing warriors, wearing black feathers, and
stealing the sun – I will leave him in the sky to warm us both
and I will rest, perched upon one of your limbs,
and watch Love rise up from the fields
once she is sure that the swords are gone.

Written 2/21 and 2/22/12
© 2012 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.

—————————————————-
This poem was written for We Write Prompts #94, Ode to a Tree. I think I went a bit on a tangent with this one — the speaker is addressing the tree but also speaking of herself at the same time.

-Nicole
————————————————————
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Stumble It!

We call for the banishment of bathtubs to
oblivion, accusing them of claiming a riot grrrl and a
lizard king poet before. We yank the coruscating dust of vision
out of the shaman’s hands to prevent the rising of
more of the lost, the afflicted, and the addicted holding
guitars, pens, and microphones. We perform
exorcisms on glass bottles to cast out liquid spirits,
sending them to the deserts with our blame and grief
upon their backs. And now, we call for an ex-husband’s
head, hanging him in effigy from every rooftop and
video screen.

We cannot understand how the angel leaves us
with broken wings. We feel a part of our past
falling to the ground, turbid with pixie dust, grieving for
the gospel choir girl with dreams and water stuffed in
her throat. We prayed for the good girl to shed her
bad girl skin and return to us, a ruddy Nubian goddess
with honey curls and an Emphyrian voice that climbs,
soars, and sails past comets, planets, and stars. And then,
we wonder: did our prayers fall to the ground, too?

Now, we wait, our breath pulled in like
stars just before supernova,
eyes stretched beyond telescope range,
watching for the chemical oracles to speak. We wait,
casting waterfalls from each left eye and
watching each other stagger with shell-shocked legs with each
right eye. And we wait, talking about
misfortune in threes and wondering if more stars
will come loose and fall to the ground. Yet while
we wait, we replay hymns of glory and respond
with antiphons of love, promising never
to forget the choir girl who sang them.

Written 2/12/12
© 2012 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.
——————————-
This was written as my reaction to the news of Whitney Houston’s death. Whitney, may you rest in peace and find relief and love in The Great Beyond.

A small annotative note: the “riot grrrl” refers to Kristen Pfaff, the former bassist of Hole who died at age 27 in her bathtub just a few months after Kurt Cobain died.
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Stumble It!

And now, you are here. You have learned
that fingertip touch like feathers makes me scream,
mouth closed, and button my skin to hold me closed in
so that I do not explode so soon – but those same fingers
firmly upon my skin light fires that amplify and accelerate
towards slow burn. I cannot help but undo buttons, expose
rounded goblets and red founts, and dance for your eyes.

Lover of lotus, sapphire man, keeper of Order,
you have already walked with me to discover
this computer mind and glass-shatter heart
with cable nerves stripped open bequeathed by an
Asperger gift — but did you know that I wear a
body of fire and fingers of flame? In this dense and heady darkness,
do you wish to see Pele glow?
And do you dare to see Pele blow?
You must unlock her with fingertips and gentle conquest,
dance the careful balance between pacific and tempestuous,
release the love and fury by turns. And it will be no hard task
for you — you already can hold fire
in the palm of your hand.

Written 2/9/12
© 2012 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.
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This poem was written for We Write Poems Prompt #93: Finger Painting, which directed us to explore and consider the fingers and then write a poem.

-Nicole
—————————————————-
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Stumble It!