Johnny Seitz       [ Poem 1 | Poem 2 ]

  I started life, much as my poetry suggests, as a head banging autistic child.  I am face-blind and mind-blind, have sensory disfunction and a bit of OCD.  Yet, because of the right intervention by my mother at a time when the research was in its infancy, I have grown up to be a successful and fulfilled adult.  I have been happily married for 20 years, have been a teacher on the university level, and a mime performer performing internationally. My wife Chris,  a neurotypical person, is a therapist working with autistic children. Chris designs behavioral programs for teachers and aids working with autistic children and together we present at autism conferences and in service presentations in schools.  Because I am verbal and able to speak for the ones who cannot, we are able to open up a window into the world I live in that seems to make parents and teachers shift their expectations and their communications with their children. We often talk to parents and aids who are working with nonverbal children. So often they are working on merely getting the kids not to hurt themselves or others or to achieve basic socialization skills. They often have no real picture of what creating a bridge between the two worlds could look like if they are successful. We also have a mime and poetry presentation, two of the poems from which are presented here. I encourage any parent or teacher to ask either of us whatever they need to to make a safer communication possibe between our two worlds.  But if they email us, be sure to put the word autism in the re: place on the email or I will discard it for fear of a virus from a stranger. E-mail: jcseitz@earthlink.net

Does God make garbage?

Why do you study me from a distance and through a glass?
Why do you speak about me behind my back?
And why do you whisper when you talk about me?

Other parents talk on and on, loudly and proudly, about each new little
   thing that their child does.
Why do you whisper and glance around furtively?
Do you fear that someone might think that you created me, not God?
That the me that you created will reflect inadequacies in you.
That society might reject you because of me?

I once heard that God does not make garbage,
then who made me?

Am I a disease that you might catch?

Are my idiosyncrasies little germs that might infect you and make those
parts that are different in you begin to grow?

Believe it or not, I am a human being too, just like you.
My need for love and understanding is just
wrapped up in different colored paper.

If looking into your eyes makes me forget all the things I need to say,
this doesn’t mean I’m stupid, or in another world or not present.
It’s just that your eyes are so deep and so filled with so many things
that they, your eyes, can confuse me.
I can too easily get lost among all the fascinating things I see.

Sometimes, if I don’t respond it’s not cause I’m too stupid to
   understand English.
It’s that words are so slippery at times and the same words can mean so
   many different things.
And other times, I simply can’t easily grab onto and use the words you
   might understand to say “thank you” or “I love you.”
But it doesn’t mean I have no feelings.
I have too many.

I have heard that people only really fear the things that attract them.
The tall building draws and repels the man afraid of heights.
Could you be drawn to my uniqueness cause it resonates with some
   unexplored part of you?

The ancients used to metaphorically pile their sins onto the back of a goat
   and then drive the poor animal out into the desert to die of starvation.
Am I the scapegoat that must be driven away in order to expiate parts of
   normal people that must never be explored?
Do you fear that your membership in society might be revoked if you ever
   admitted that you might be just a little like me?

Maybe my peculiarities are really, just reflections of the things in you
   that you are afraid to look too closely at.

And why are you so embarrassed by my honesty, so ashamed of my
   uniqueness?
Will too much fascination with one thing diminish you.
Might it not open doors of discovery for all mankind (your kind and my kind)

Forget my little tics and my strange little rituals for just a second and
   weigh my honesty and my loyalty and against artificial facades and
   hidden meanings.
If God does not make garbage, then who made me?
Maybe I am a gift that you just forgot to open!

poem #2

I live in a world that is parallel to yours and yet separate from yours,
We share the air we both breath,
We share the stars we both walk under,
I do not share your understanding of peoples’ minds.
Nor can you share the silent joys or the terrors that I know.

I am battered by forces that you cannot see or hear.
I am constantly shaken to my roots by winds you cannot feel.
Things that you don’t even notice, overwhelm me constantly.
And I get totally lost in fascination with things you never see,
And, often, I completely miss your smiles and your frowns.

My memories are often hidden from me
Like a handful of marbles spread across a parking lot.
My emotions sometimes leap upon me from out of nowhere.
And I often can’t remember the simplest things, like how to get home
And I remember the most obscure, like serial numbers and license plates.

I walk in ways that you sometimes find funny.
I forget faces and I am embarrassed when I do not know who you are.
I sometimes need to flap my hands or sway my body, to find where I left it.
I need to control as many things as I can to make my world as safe as
possible.
I am a child you cannot see in the body of an adult you don’t understand.

© Johnny Seitz