Diverse Thinking: My poem for World Autism Acceptance Day 2016

Readers, it is World Autism Acceptance Day today, and to celebrate especially the novel and inventive ways of thinking used by autistic people past and present, diagnosed and undiagnosed, here is my poem:

Diverse Thinking:

You can't immediately see my differences
So you just expect me to think and act the same way
Even though just by neurological circumstances
My mind was moulded from a different clay

I don't always need to see it that way
Just because everyone else happens to
Often you need to think outside the box
And without looking to people know what you should do

Then you find out I have autism
And immediately think I can't think properly
My ideas are somehow deviant and weird to you
Just because they don't match your view of 'normally'

I might not necessarily immediately know
Where Sally would look for her marbles
But in your attempts to make me see your perspective
You're also clearly not without your foibles.

Remember,the minds of autistics past and present
Like Alan Turing, Vincent Van Gogh,
Temple Grandin, and so many others,
Have helped us all think forwards from the off.

See, my diverse thinking can actually be quite wonderful
When you need it and it can entertain you a lot,
Just remember we can and do speak and think for ourselves.
(Since 'Autism Speaks' most certainly does not!)




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