Invisible: Neurodivergent in a Typical world. (Spoken Word Poetry)
I wrote this to present as part of an assignment while studying a Bachelor of Education at Murdoch University in 2023.
No one ever told me that there would be days when invisibility would be a curse rather than a superpower. I grew up in the playground of life, loving the freedom from strife and a social life rife with friends who saw me for who I was and loved me anyway.
Those were the days.
They started small, stayed small. We played in the tall trees at the park, played superhero. With capes. Before the wands and wizards, we believed magic came from a good heart and the will to work hard and save everyone. We had power.
When I played the invisible girl, I was free to go anywhere, do anything. I flew under the radar, riding my bike far across the neighbourhood. Skating downhill so fast I barely cast a shadow. I didn’t dare drop my toe stop or I’d be airborne. I was a superhero. Didn’t draw an eye or an ear. No one could hear me winning the war through subtle scores of secret success. It was effortless.
Then I grew up. In high school I was the invisible girl. But instead of secret success I was drowning in the caress of agonising loneliness. Unseen, unheard, but not because I was fighting the bad guys or winning the wars. I was nobody. Somebody nobody noticed because I didn’t know anybody, and everybody knew somebody but nobody knew me. Nobody wanted to. They had their friends, and I wasn’t one of them.
But nobody told me invisibility goes deep. Left in an emphatic heap when my own body betrayed me with invisible scars that stole energy, every day. It wasn’t the depression, that’s invisible too, but deeper. My bodies jailor wasn’t superhero, or sailor, but science. Pain surged under the surface. Invisible, decaying, and fragile. The bike left me sore to my core and I broke on the spokes by degrees. My joints sang a swan song every time I put my skates on my knees couldn’t stay strong not for long. Even the slow songs were agony. But nobody saw me. Invisible.
I saw everything. Even the things nobody else sees. In the visions and curses, hallucinations and hearses rose spectres of memory, of history, of death. I was an invisible mess my mind broken and stressed just trying to hold on to the real and seal away the sight. I couldn’t fight the fright, that rose up to haunt me. Day or night it rose up to blight my defences. My senses on overdrive. No drive left to thrive. No will to survive. Nobody saw the knife at my wrist.
A little superhero invisible girl I lived on, I tried to stay strong, mostly. Grew and started a family. Hiding away the dark days and tragedy. Trying to live free and pretend. If they couldn’t see it, then we could pretend I was hiding it well. I wasn’t. But somehow, we choose to be blind to things.
My daughter played on the swings, my son silent and speechless. I saw their radiance and knew they were worth every heartbreak and sleepless night. Worried. Not just because I was broken and worthless but because I didn’t know how to make sense of what I couldn’t see within them, a part of who we are. It’s invisible too.
And because its invisible bonds hold us down, bury and drown, our laughter and light we fight. Face daily the plight of an endless right to feel normal. Typical. But we aren’t. The invisible makes us different.
Although they can’t see it, they sense it. We can’t hide that we can’t thrive and as much as we strive, we can’t keep up. They won’t let us. Because the race is stacked against us. We’re crippled and helpless to live up to the standards they set. The rules, well we forget why they matter, if we ever knew them at all.
They make wheelchairs and sticks as a visible fix for the disabilities we see. But in me, the disabilities are invisible. I scream but am silent.
