precious to me

because

your fingertips send

signals southward

singing of silken,

sandpaper urgency

and

underneath your cynic's

tongue, there lies

compassion - cinnamon-warm,

sweet, and steadfast

you are a vibrant, lingering, joyous

yearning

and

you are treasured

unseen academics

lanyards and lapel pins

blazers and badges

but zero contracts

contacts in the cold

old way of working

out of sync

out of office

out of touch

base when the 

freshers 

reach capacity

crowded hopes

and until then

just

hold

on

evidence

every appointment requires another piece of paper

another piece of paper signed by a specialist

a specialist looking for solutions to my wrongness

my wrongness measured by how it annoys normal people

it annoys normal people that i seem to be coping well

i seem to be coping well and fuelling my own survival

fuelling my own survival and thriving at this point

thriving at this point and it may come as a surprise

it may come as a surprise that difference doesn’t always equal failure

difference doesn’t always equal failure if you are accustomed to cracking codes

if you are accustomed to cracking codes you are capable of extraordinary successes

you are capable of extraordinary successes and even the occasional happiness

and even the occasional happiness if you stop to notice a certain guy

if you stop to notice a certain guy and take a chance on magnetism

take a chance on magnetism because you have it in spades

you have it in spades and he has spotted your brilliance

he has spotted your brilliance because he is a specialist

a specialist looking not for solutions

but for companionship

with the current

resisting equals restlessness and suicidal tendencies so it’s wiser to go with the current even though it means sleeplessness and submission to the keyboard or the notebook and pen and a bleeding callous on the first knuckle of the middle finger of the right hand while the left hand is coasting clean of ink medication wears off around nineteen hundred hours and away we go again sliding into steep swells and sinking into stories subsumed by daytime routines and coffee machines and the effort to maintain the masking and oh, will you look at the time, time to go home get out of these layers of lies and lie down, down, down to the wire and the moment the synapses sense freedom they snap open the straight jacket and jump out onto the page or better yet the stage and they scream blue and green until they get taken hostage by a rip, rip, rip cord of sleep

find the seam

everybody talks about the bad bits and never the good stuff, like how we can compute all available sources of information and make a lightning-fast choice for the next, best, course of action and that this makes us invaluable in an emergency, and like how we can find the seam of gold in an otherwise endless wall of greyness in the middle of a project and come up with a brand new solution that evaporates the weight from everyone’s shoulders and that this makes us irreplaceable in the creative industries, and like how we might seem to be doing nothing but we are just quietly brewing brilliance and next minute we’re writing at the speed of sound and doing the work of twenty sub-editors in the space of one afternoon and that this makes us indispensable when a deadline is approaching and like how we are more than squirrel spotters, we are ebullient and sensitive and smart, and yet everybody talks about the bad bits

queer...as in gay?

as in different from that slippery notion of normality

as in out of bounds sensuality

as in hyper-aware

as in oscillating between too-muchness and not-enoughness

as in haircuts hurt but bondage doesn’t

as in can’t remember their name but can remember that little freckle they had on their toe

as in started writing and didn’t stop for nine hours

as in this room is too bright

as in the buzz of sleeping devices is too loud

as in some nights it’s one drink and vomit and other nights it’s twenty and no impact

as in a death-wish has always squatted upon my chest

as in brains are sexier than hips

as in a tickle hurts but a punch doesn’t

as in comprehension is possible only within poetics

as in music and mathematics look the same and are equally nourishing

as in phone calls are frightening but public speaking comes easily

as in structure is a double-edged sanity

as in hyper-aware

as in out of bounds sensuality

as in different from that slippery notion of normality

diagnostics

we interrupt our regular programming to invite you consider the possibility that your struggles cannot be explained away by the current diagnoses and that you may have something altogether different and more complex running around inside that queer head of yours something altogether different and more complex than garden-variety anxiety and depression see the issue may not be serotonin after all but rather dopamine and given your answers to this test this test this test yes another test lead us to believe that indeed you are even further away from what we call normal than we had initially thought now try this new concoction of medication there’s a good girl come on back in a fortnight and let us know whether you felt more subdued in which case we are correct or whether you felt like your heart was beating so fast it would break out of your chest at any second in which case we are incorrect and you will have experienced two weeks’ worth of speed-living and we apologise in advance but this is the only way we can know for sure and it’s for your own good that we interrupt our regular programming to invite you to consider the possibility that your struggles cannot be explained away by the current diagnoses