The Calm Before The Storm

Take my hand and come with me.

I want to teach you about ADHD, autism, and me.

I want to teach you about my brain.

I need you to know, I want to explain.

How I have a different brain

My mind is a storm, but never the same.

Not Like you or me

A whirlwind of never-ending focus, untamed by just a name

Thoughts that leap like untamed flames, a flicker, and a burn

Before they have vanished like a thought before I can even learn.

I am bright and broken.

With each little fragment of each passing day and night

A trail that no can see other than me.

which is stitched and sewed handmade in the silence of everything in me?

ADHD’S pulse beats fast and wide.

then in a second there is a flood of moments, I cannot hide nor tell.

where my attention and mind are darting everywhere but where I want them to be.

Craving peace in the sun but is lost in the night.

Autism speaks in whispers which is soft and low.

A code which is locked by me by the silence that I only know

Which shield and hides in the logic which wraps around me in thought?

I exist between an ocean and a bridge.

In a world full of chaos, precision is sought.

Where the storm starts but never seems to end,

I still feel too much and not enough.

Where I am left balancing my brain and life on these rough edges

Words which tangle and social cues twisted and missed.

In a storm full of clarity, I am often missed.

Where I can only see this horrid world in different shades that are not known

Yet I am still left in utter silence and alone.

But in this storm, I navigate my way,

a vision full of light and grey.

What is seen among us by beauty, though is hard to describe?

And in these fragments, I am me and me alone.

So, I am the storm, the calm, and the flame.

A name being untethered by labels and names.

In this chaos of stillness and silence, I find my form.

In the deep dark depths of ADHD and autism and its storm

Take my hand and come with me.

I want to teach you about ADHD and autism and me.

I want to teach you about my brain.

I need you to know, I want to explain.

How I have a different brain

By Molly Dryden