Hanging onto words

Glad you made it in, my therapist said.

That's a drawing of her, er the back of her head anyway. Rudimentary but accurately conveys.

I nailed each letter to my inner wall with hammer and four inch nails.

The words, impersonal. After not having an appointment for three weeks, I had hoped for something more, something personal or maybe warm. She was acknowledging my effort but nothing more

Had she said,

I'm glad you're here or It's nice to see you, those would have been warm words. Those were words I felt but could not speak. That happens, the not being able to speak, the mute, the silence, the six inch invisible wall that prohibits me from communicating when excess time has passed between our meetings.

The familiarity of that open stream that passes from one to the other shuts down, gets diverted, or rather is dammed. With no where to flow, no regularity, the tap turns off. No need to flow watery words when no one can hear them. Turn off the hose, those flowers are already damp, dead, or have pulled up their roots like skirts and scurried away. Those no receptacle. So turn off the tap and shut the door. Don't just shut the door, lock it, turn the heavy wheel to seal it shut from the inside. The great effort of verbiage need not be used, wasted, or expended.

I listened to them, the outers, the neurotypicals as I lay in my hospital bed wavering with my latest mystery pain. They talk as if it is effortless, without expenditure, with ease. Their words have no weight, are light as air and careless like dust sprinkled every where.

How strange and queer those multitudes of creatures are. There words flow, spill and cascade as easily as my tears. Yet, they think little of them, the words strung together like loose daisy chains for all to see like flimsy crowns upon their heads.

They don't seem to pay any price for them. A dime for a hundred dozen while I pay a penny per letter.

Glad you made it in.

I take the words I hear, especially the ones directed at me, and I nail them to my wall. They stay there for reminder, for further analysis. They have great weight.

I won't take them down. Just next time the therapist says words, the new ones will be nailed underneath and gain prominent position.

Be aware of what you say. Autistics are listening and remembering and nailing your words to walls.