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God Does Not Make Garbage
 I
once heard that God does not make garbage
Why do you study me from a distance and through a glass?
Why do you speak about me behind my back?
And why do you whisper when you talk about me?
Other parents talk on and on, loudly and proudly, about each new
little thing that their child does.
Why do you whisper and glance around furtively?
Do you fear that someone might think that you created me, not God?
That the me that you created will reflect inadequacies in you.
That society might reject you because of me?
I once heard that God does not make garbage,
then who made me?
Am I a disease that you might catch?
Are my idiosyncrasies little germs that might infect you and make
those parts that are different in you begin to grow?
Believe it or not, I am a human being too, just like you.
My need for love and understanding is just
wrapped up in different colored paper.
If looking into your eyes makes me forget all the things I need
to say, this doesn’t mean I’m stupid, or in another
world or not present.
It’s just that your eyes are so deep and so filled with so
many things that they, your eyes, can confuse me.
I can too easily get lost among all the fascinating things I see.
Sometimes, if I don’t respond it’s not cause I’m
too stupid to understand English.
It’s that words are so slippery at times and the same words
can mean so many different things.
And other times, I simply can’t easily grab onto and use the
words you might understand to say “thank you” or “I
love you.”
But it doesn’t mean I have no feelings.
I have too many.
I have heard that people only really fear the things that attract
them.
The tall building draws and repels the man afraid of heights.
Could you be drawn to my uniqueness cause it resonates with some
unexplored part of you?
The ancients used to metaphorically pile their sins onto the back
of a goat and then drive the poor animal out into the desert to
die of starvation.
Am I the scapegoat that must be driven away in order to expiate
parts of normal people that must never be explored?
Do you fear that your membership in society might be revoked if
you ever admitted that you might be just a little like me?
Maybe my peculiarities are really, just reflections of the things
in you that you are afraid to look too closely at.
And why are you so embarrassed by my honesty, so ashamed of my
uniqueness?
Will too much fascination with one thing diminish you.
Might it not open doors of discovery for all mankind (your kind
and my kind)
Forget my little tics and my strange little rituals for just a
second and weigh my honesty and my loyalty and against artificial
facades and hidden meanings.
If God does not make garbage, then who made me?
Maybe I am a gift that you just forgot to open!
I live in a world that is different than yours
I live in a world that is parallel to yours and yet separate from
yours,
We share the air we both breathe,
We share the stars we both walk under,
I do not share your understanding of peoples’ minds.
Nor can you share the silent joys or the terrors that I know.
I am battered by forces that you cannot see or hear.
I am constantly shaken to my roots by winds you cannot feel.
Things that you don’t even notice, overwhelm me constantly.
And I get totally lost in fascination with things you never see,
And, often, I completely miss your smiles and your frowns.
My memories are often hidden from me
Like a handful of marbles spread across a parking lot.
My emotions sometimes leap upon me from out of nowhere.
And I often can’t remember the simplest things, like how to
get home
And I remember the most obscure, like serial numbers and license
plates.
I walk in ways that you sometimes find funny.
I forget faces and I am embarrassed when I do not know who you are.
I sometimes need to flap my hands or sway my body, to find where
I left it.
I need to control as many things as I can to make my world as safe
as possible.
I am a child you cannot see in the body of an adult you don’t
understand.
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