Future Lover

I’m not quite remembering what I’m supposed to be doing, but I know it’s not sitting with my knees to my neck on the windowsill, drinking that damn coffee blend I don’t even like out of my prized blue-stripe tea cups.

There’s probably an essay to be written, a library book to find, a sweater to mend, a meal to cook.

Instead I write this out the notepad I keep on the counter, dreading the cold shower I’m about to take, and face I’m about to put on.

As you hold that small, soft kitten

You sent me a video, forgot it had audio

And in the background I hear you say

“Be quiet baby, it’s late”

The kitten’s purrs almost drown it out

But they don’t

And are you trying to win me back?

I won’t go back

Even though you want me

But I do watch the video again, and one more time after that

I go to bed and hear you say that again

I miss you, even if I’m the one who left

With anyone

What I believe will never fail me

I tell myself god is love

And I know it’s true

Still, the love I know is cruel

I let it teach me that I must never be

And maybe that’s gods objective too

As he leaves destruction in his wake (wherever he is going)

As his child, I pay reparations

I still stumble,

The apple fell from the tree

I hit every shot

You hit none

In the end

I keep going over

Maybe I just trip at the end

Maybe I just like playing with you

I still win

But you feel like we were equal for a moment

I feel guilty for a moment

And that’s all you need to know about us in the end

Darts isn’t really a fun game anyways

(Maybe we’re just not good opponents)

And I lost the weight

And I finally got what you said I’d never have

And just like a sh!t movie, I don’t come crawling back

Not because I don’t want to

God you know I do

But because I promised I wouldn’t

And it won’t stop being hot

My thighs are flesh

And it won’t leave my bones

My heartbeat makes me real

And it makes my head spin

The news said three feet

And for the first time they underestimated,

Because now four and a half feet of snow weigh down the branches of spruce behind my house

So four and a half feet of silence weigh down on my mind

It suffocates my words

And yet, like icicles once again on streetlights

I form thoughts I’ve formed before, slowly in my mind

They grow, and they sharpen, and before I know it they shatter my ground.

It plunges me into icy worries I do not need

The snow becomes too silent

Icicles are too sharp

Ice is too thick, or worse, too thin

The sky becomes too dark

And yet I let the silence in

Tbh I really want to hear from other people with apd, and their experiences, cause I’ve actually never met another person with severe apd, so here’s a list of 10 questions if any of my fellow apd people wanna answer some!

1: when did you (or those around you) realize there was something up with your hearing?

2: does your apd come with other neurodivergency?

3: does your apd also come with specifically synesthesia?

4: what resources and accommodations have you found help best?

5: which headphones are better, in ear or outer ear?

6: how do you explain apd to those around you?

7: what is the worst thing about apd?

8: what is the best thing about apd?

9: which is worse, repetitive noises or loud noises?

10: do other people in your family have apd?

And you get shit from both deaf and hearing people, like deaf & HOH people telling you to “stop using our services,” and “well… but you don’t actually know what it’s like to have hearing problems,” like… yes I do??? also like, Ive really wanted to learn ASL for a long time, so that maybe, just maybe I can communicate without issues, but in the class for hearing people at my local disability services area, they always talk to teach so I couldn’t understand, yet apparently I wasn’t eligible for the non talking course with subtitles???

Not to mention, teachers not believing you, people thinking you’re stupid, people in general not believing you have hearing issues because “you listen to music” and “you sound so normal” and having to constantly explain that you have to see someone’s face to understand what they’re saying and you’ll still get it wrong a lot.

Of course I’m not saying that I’m deaf or hard of hearing, I’m just tired of not having anyone understand and being penalized for something I can’t control.

Arms Tonite ain’t tonight but fireflies days old- years old

twinning shock expressions with 12 year old me

I hit my drum like the fire we met first

And you meet my eyes

Are you feeling flashbacks violent too?

You’re quite the same as I met you days ago- years ago

Am I twinning 12 year old me?

A little too close when you no longer speak

(To me)

A little too far when you make sense a bit

No, the distance is just far enough for me to meet your eyes,

Not to forget anything, mainly to get rid of useless screenshots, or the hundreds of random photos my brother stole my phone to take

But I stumble across a photo from the end of the summer

You were holding my phone so that I could help Abby on the train

And you sneakily took a photo of us in the reflection of the train window

I didn’t notice it till now

But i know it’s purposeful

Because you’re making that stupid “I wanna look cool” face

And you’re flashing a peace sign

My fingers ghost over the delete button

But I don’t delete it

I didn’t mean to, really

I don’t hate my voice as it sings

I don’t hate myself as it is writing this

I think I just hate everything it’s done

And every thing it hasn’t

And those things are me

And those are myself