Ode to my Autistic Brother

Contributor: Shaquana Adams

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Scrawny like me,
Almost a male twin.

He finds happiness
In the dark, in his head.

Communicates through pictures and
Sculptures made of aluminum foil he

Can sculpt Optimus Prime
Without missing a detail.

Laughs in public about private memories
And smiles at the nothings of life.

When he was younger and the diagnosis came,
I vowed to smile at him everyday

So he will always know that he is loved.

As an adolescent he tickles me even after
I say stop and smiles mischievously before he starts.

Sometimes he’d say the smartest things about
Love and loss,

And I’d wonder how he knew.

My brother, my brother.

His life will have unlimited happiness
Because even in sorrow he knows,

That happiness is all in the mind.


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Shaquana Adams is an internationally published poet with a fondness for the color purple. Her poems can be found in Napalm and Novocain, Dead Snakes, Inkapture, Snow Island Review, Bicycle Review, Verse Land, and The World of Myth. She is quiet on the outside but goofy on the inside and writes because the best thing about writing is that she can say what she needs to say. It is an awesome experience.

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/QuanaWana
Website: http://quanawana.weebly.com/