Neurodivergent

from SFUMATO by Julián Esteban Torres López

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about

“Neurodivergent” explores the chaos within as I stumble about in hopscotch stutters in my own labyrinth: my mind. Questioning: if the images of my mind coincide with the metaphorically inclined rhymes of so-called “Enlightenment.”

Written at 20 years old, I always felt as if with this piece my future self was sending me messages I needed to decipher to overcome my past traumas, to learn more about myself and my relationship with/to my internal realities, to accept my infinite curiosities and limitless desire for accuracy and perfection and become a version of me I was supposed either discover, grow into, and/or create for myself...

a constant battle between destiny and self-determination... between self-discovery and self-creation. A yearning for order in "disorder." A silent, inner scream for acceptance and belonging. This self-exploratory piece highlights how my ADHD, Autism, OCD, my Aphantasia, and other unnamed neurodivergent pieces of me meet, interact, and manifest at the intersection of my thoughts and intense emotions.

It took me 20 years since I first wrote this to give this piece a title that satisfied me because I didn't have the language to prudently capture the scaffolding and synapses of my inner world.

However, the word neurodivergent, like all words, also exists within the a restrained interpretive horizon.

Though it seems easier enough now to grant the word to not only this piece but also to how my brain is wired and to how I experience and interact with the world... once challenged to unpack what it means to be neurodivergent, I and most who have also embraced this word as identity tend to very quickly recognize there are inherent limitations to this endeavor of naming ourselves to claim ourselves so we can better inhabit ourselves... as there are any time one tries to essentialize anything.

In the process of trying to construct an identity, one always leaves something out when trying to include something else.

And so...

I define, refine, reflect, write, rewrite, rewind, doubt, remind, recreate, revise, disguise, disclose, dislodge, dismiss, adopt, react, return, fast-forward, mask, code-switch, mistake, dislike, disrobe, descend, ascend, intend, search, judge, forget, disown, adopt, alienate, estrange, reminisce, refresh…

dismembered but remembered…

a phantom limb, untethered.

lyrics

LYRICS

I do not need 60 light bulbs to light up a mansion; all I need is one bulb and 60 broken mirrors. ‘Cause even through my frugality I can still enlighten a whole society, creating shadows through shadows of light.

My childish imagination plays with a flashlight, making shadow puppets of enlightenment … ready to leave their mark, pasted upon tree bark, sipping the sap from the tree dripping glazed melted knowledge and wisdom as maple syrup upon my tongue.

I feel for scars that have never felt a wound; yet I warn you: do not let me fall asleep with a pen in my hand. I might stab my emotions to death for allowing me to see so clearly.

However, sometimes, light blinds what is already there, that is why I choose to write with my eyes closed, at times: to see the words I would have not been able to see originally, in my imagination, in the dark.

In the dark my pen leaks from both ends when I write, expressing its imagination through the hair extensions of poetic sketches.

However, sometimes, I wish I could highlight light itself with a permanent marker, so I do not only catch a glimpse of it, but so I can engrave its presence in the memory lapses of my mental images .... to see if it such words are hallucinations, mere self-deceptions, taken from the bent rib of ignorance … to see if it is make-believe through my flight of fancy or wishful thinking.

Imagining: a punctured picture penetrated by light through cracks of shadows.

Questioning: if the images of my mind coincide with the metaphorically inclined rhymes of “Enlightenment.”

Sure similes of Monet might paint the portrait of my analogies more perfectly with a paintbrush and not a permanent marker, maybe. But all I am really trying to say is that I do not want a flash of light to zephyr by me unnoticed … but I want that flash to be highlighted within the parenthesis of permanence.

A shadow so great that only Hiroshima’s blast can burn a shadow on its own shadow’s presence. An explosion of words so vast that I do not want them to pass by me, but to penetrate my existence.

As voices … as voices are reporting concussions of conclusions … mere confusions, though, with such frailty of understanding that my back aches as if it were my Achilles heel receiving lashes on the pirate’s bounty.

I feel the sun burn my skin like acid dancing in complementary angles like angels praying to Satan and demons to Jesus.

Maybe I need more than just one light bulb to bring society toward such acceptance of all of our complimentary existence: Black light, brown light, red light, yellow light, white light, highlighting peace and understanding for maybe one moment in time.

Whether it be through my eyes closed or opened, I am still thinking. Whether it be through my conscious mind or under it, sunbathing in daydreams or nightswimming in disillusion … man, even children understand such prophecies, why can’t we?

Where is my mind's eye, imagination making shadow puppets of enlightenment with a flashlight now? Where is the pen leaking from both ends now? Where is the highlighter of permanence now?

-sigh-

Maybe I can keep that one light bulb, and just break the already broken pieces of mirrors again, even more, and pass them around, so we all may be able to see the light captured inside … so we might one day realize that our ignorance is not mere pop culture but it is also our own reflections.

I feel for scars that have never felt a wound, but mostly I feel for wounds that have yet to scar. And so, I keep my eyes closed and imagine peace through complementary angles of life and light.

-sigh-

I am waiting ...

And as I wait, I stumble. Stumble upon voices. Voices impending in the membranes of my thoughts and I cannot think clearly now.

Voices surrounding the mountainous valleys, touching the skies with their torches, burning the oxygen that is lacking yet not fading above where the wise owls roam.

I stand on my head because I cannot think clearly right-side up. I turn the map of the world upside down and watch the snowflakes of voices fall from the ground up to the heavens above because I am a thinker taking notes outside the box.

But, in all actuality, I do not even see it as a box. You see I see it as a circle, or zero, or maybe an eight because I can take that circle of life and pinch it to create infinity.

You see my mind is a Genome Project of its own. Not even Bobby Fischer is capable of mapping the blueprints of my intellect through one mere game of chess.

You see, the shortest distance between two points to me is not a line, nor a curve, but another dot. Folding the plane of time in half. Playing tricks with space and the linear. And even within that dot, in itself, it contains the elements of my existence.

I use the magnifying glass of my iris’ focus and realized that even within that dot there is another dot creating another distance.

I would be ignorant, to say the least, if I were to say that I was certain of certainty as a fact. I claim to obtain purity in my thoughts, yet my virginity seems tainted with questions …

Questions that turn to voices … that turn to confusion … that turn to answers, at times.

But sometimes those times are few to none and other times I have to find clarity within my confusion by residing inside the residence of acceptance because sometimes there are no answers, just more questions.

Nonetheless, I hear the voices, they are mine, inside my mind they recline. And then I speak and I hear one unified voice, incorporating co-constructional relational realities within the voices conversing within me.

And then I speak, and I imagine, and I have a dream where one day I will allow my mind to speak, not just with my breath but with the breath of those around me, as they stumble about in a daze, in my home, lost in the elaborate labyrinth I have constructed: my mind.

My mind: a room full of mirrors and windows … mirrors and windows … harvesting words … words written with the acid and sweat of my fingertips ...

Words upon the reflecting glasses. Rows and rows of mirrors and windows … mirrors and windows. Some two-way, and others mere one-sided. All in all, infinite, thinking outside the box.

Or, should I say outside the circle, or zero, or maybe eight, depending on which way one decides to pinch imagination’s box and look at it … and perceive it.

This is the way I discover.

This is the way I discover the exoskeleton of the internal, eternal extremities of my realities … boundless in my fancy. I think.

As I, myself, become the others stumbling about in hopscotch stutters in my own labyrinth: my mind.

Nonetheless, no answers. Mere confusion, mere questions.

An intellect finding peace within the gatherings of pieces of acceptance. Scattered around the room like balding petalled roses … mere voices upon breaths within labyrinths of confusion … like Socrates, the mere midwife, planting seeds of “Enlightenment” inside the minds of those around him with questions … not answers.

As I claim to obtain purity in my thoughts, yet my virginity seems tainted with questions ...

Questions that turn to voices, that turn to confusion, that turn to answers … at times. But sometimes those times are few to none, and other times (man, other times) those voices also see themselves breathing, upon infinite articulation, and they, too, find acceptance, yes, they, too, find acceptance … upon the reflections of their own confusions. Upon the reflections … of the reflections … of their voices.

credits

from SFUMATO, released January 31, 2022
"Neurodivergent," published in Knee Brace Press, January 2023. The piece was originally published in a magazine in 2021, but I later retracted publication because of the white supremacy apologist position of the publication’s EIC.

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Julián Esteban Torres López Kailua Kona, Hawaii

Julián Esteban Torres López, a divergent polymath and multi-hyphenate artist, explores how we engage with, make sense of, heal from, and transform the nature-nurture of being. His trauma-informed creations and expressions examine heritage and existential concerns with care and nuance through a decolonial prism. ... more

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