Speaking in Tongues (This Is Autism)

Written by Nicole Nicholson

Originally published at Raven's Wing Poetry

I speak in tongues: I burn,
scorching my voice with the rising dawn,
igniting words and air
until my throat-flame has gone –

and I leave a phalanx of fire made
from bundled armies of fulgent spears.
Trees bend low to the river
to soothe their scorched ears.

My bones are gravid with words,
my brain swollen with pictures:
my attic cries for release from
words drenched with tinctures –

bleeding film, turgid and dripping,
slithers underneath my skin
to exit through my fingertips. Read
the blood to know where I’ve been.

Tear the stars from my belly if you must:
but know that my feathers are ink and sky.
Pull down Heaven upon my head –
maybe you will see me cry,

but maybe you will see me dance
my stripped wire patterns into the earth,
a waggle dance woven into my soul,
double-helixes programmed before birth

from which both my gifts and pain come.
I will not erase these from my soul.
They are the reason I speak in tongues,
extracting ribbons of cellophane gold

from the cathedral of strings, alive
and forever oscillating in my heart.
I would not be this colored soul:
a tuning fork, pitched by this art

of words. This is my autism: it blossoms,
lotus-curved, white floating blooms
open to the sky to drink in the rain
while the ignorant build rows of tombs

and declare us dead. Pity is a grave, unfit
for the living. I don’t regret the wings
that God gave me. I will speak in tongues,
I will fly, and I will forever sing.

Written 11/18/13
© 2013 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.
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I interrupt this month’s adventure poetry to present this poem, which was written for 1) the This is Autism flash blog event, and 2) for Joseph Harker’s Renovation Seventeen prompt, borrowing this element: “I shall burn my house with the rising dawn.” (Robert Penn Warren, “Vision”).

I am uploading a video to YouTube of me reading the poem. It will be here once it YT has processed it (insert “Jeopardy!” Theme here). When it will be available, you can play it below: