At 73, I'm still chasing dreams I'll never fully reach. The biggest? That gut-wrenching need to matter… So what’s left if I finally let that go?
This 55-sec clip is from my new piece “Letting Go.” For the full story… the Walmart moment that sparked it, the deep trauma & the rage-to-hope ending…
Head to #ApplePodcasts.
#ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD #SpokenWord #DisabilityPoetry #AutisticElder #Neurodivergent #Poetry #PoetryCommunity
They say we don't make friends. Don't feel grief.
My friend Billy died alone in a polar vortex. Years later, he still laughs in my autistic heart.
Wrote this spoken word piece for him. 3 minutes about friendship, loss, and what they never tell you about our hearts.
#ActuallyAutistic #SpokenWord #AutisticPoetry #Grief #DisabilityPoetry
Who never left your heart?
Someone wrote about this piece: "I'm not sure if I've been a fly on the wall listening to your family, or if you've been the fly at mine."
That recognition hits deep.
This is "sneaking my mother's creepy g-d on high" - a cinematic spoken word piece about winter 1997, family dinners, and what happens when you finally stop performing neurotypical.
Religious expectations. Neurodivergent reality. The price we pay for authenticity in families that were never built for minds like ours.
Heavy content warning: family trauma, substance use, religious themes, cult references.
How many of us recognize that battlefield of family gatherings where our honesty threatens everyone's comfort?
#ActuallyAutistic #Neurodivergent #SpokenWord #WritingCommunity #MentalHealth #DisabilityPoetry
How would YOU communicate thru a short-circuiting transistor radio?
Plain language becomes revolutionary when your neurology sparks and stutters.
My live piece explores dancing close to the edge of the noise.
How do you write about loving someone whose face you can't see?
When clinical terms fail to communicate, rhythm & rhyme fill the gap.
My live piece explores finding connection thru 'a swirl of flesh-colored fog.'
Full video: https://johnnyprofaneknapp.substack.com/p/living-truth-from-an-autistic-bad
#WritingCommunity #SpokenWord #Poetry #DisabilityPoetry #WriteSky #MentalHealth
@actuallyautistic @actuallyadhd @actuallyaudhd
Full video: https://johnnyprofaneknapp.substack.com/p/living-truth-from-an-autistic-bad
Transcript:
# "A Swirl of Flesh-Colored Fog" - Transcript
Friends. Finally, late in life, I got friends and love. And this last one is a selfie of what that's like for me.
I call it a swirl of flesh colored fog.
---
"Ya got a minute?"
She takes a quick scan of the aisles, then toward the eternal sale table near the entrance. Pink and blue signs promising two if you buy just one.
It's silent, just me standing in front of her. Bottle of the Coke Zero I'm addicted to in my hand.
Dusk, rural Indiana. I guess the local beef cattlemen, horsey folks and military munitions testers up at Crane Naval Base, they don't hit Dollar General so much around sundown.
"Sure," she says. "Nobody much comes in around now. S'up, you good?"
I take a beat to use my words... to find my words.
"I'm trying to remember all you guys. Um, you know, everybody's names."
"Oh, no worries. You're good. We really all should have name badges."
I take another beat to switch appropriate gears.
"You know, you know the autism thing. I have this face and name thing. It's weird, but I I I can't remember faces."
Awkward, awkward pause.
---
If you're listening to this, if you're reading, let me try to take you inside my my being. What's that like?
I only see um well, words fail me. Take a visit to Walmart. Just a sea of faceless ghosts. Folks, I greet. "I I I know you. Um I have this thing. Can you tell me your name again?"
Embarrassment. Stammering apologies.
See, um it's like this.
**"A swirl of flesh-colored fog.
That's my wife's face in dreams.
I only see her walking away.
A gray ponytail, tattered jeans.
Love of my life. Can't see her.
Not her green eyes and stage makeup.
Just homemade tats, the shape of her hair.
Feelings, memories, talking after that breakup."**
---
So, I'm back talking to that uh DG clerk.
"We don't get out much. Uh you guys, I I I guess it's a job, but to us, you're well, you know, friends. It means something to me to learn your name, to to know you."
"Oh. Uh." Confused, she pauses. "It's really okay. We know you and your wife. We get it."
"You know," I'm urgent. I want her to get I want her to get the weight of it. "It's not for you. It's It's for me. It means something to me to remember your names and and put them with your faces. To be friends."
I flash on all those parental commands to "make friends."
Then I say, "I just won't get it right right away, but I want to enjoy doing it."
Silence, awkward, but intimate.
I stammer. "Are you Are you uh Ari? When confused, my my go-to fallback is uh details.
"No, no, she's the she's the short blonde one." She waves her right hand about shoulder high.
"I know Kensington because well I walked in on her anaphylactic, you know, her uh allergy attack over in the dollar aisle."
"Yeah, she's the short one with black hair." She gestures with her right hand again, just just a hair lower. "And and I'm Cindy."
We laugh together. She mentions the name tags again. I make reassuring noises.
"That's Wendy, right?"
"No," she laughs. "Cindy, just with the I and the Y reversed."
"Oh, thank God. For a moment, I misremembered again. Thought you were named after that sappy 60s song."
She laughs easy again. "No, never that."
We share a wink, a nod. The doors slide. I walk outside.
"Cindy, just with the I and the Y reversed."
A swirl of flesh-colored fog framed by glasses and twisted brown hair up on her head... about yay tall.
---
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🎭 You Asked for it… More Spoken Word This Sunday, 8/31/25!
My faves we didn't get to. Plus a new hybrid piece... prose breaking out to rhyme.
You guys blew me away last weekend.
You showed up, engaged like crazy, punched YouTube for the replay… Then hit Amazon for copies of the book.
But the best part? Multiple requests for "when's the next one?" (And then there was young Pearl’s request for that Famous Black Fedora.)
So let’s do it again. Right away, this Sunday. Same energy, different poems. Subscribers only. but…
What You'll Hear This Sunday
✨ Fresh pieces from the collection… my faves that we didn't get to last week
✨ One brand new piece… a hybrid piece, prose breaking into rhyme
✨ A different emotional journey
I ain’t promising a weekly series… yet. Just high on your request for a curtain call. Intimate setting. Raw, authentic autistic perspectives. Real talk about struggle, finding our place in this neurotypical world… and moments of, well… autistic joy.
Last week I learned there's a true hunger for authentic autistic voices in our community. Let's keep this conversation going.
Can't make it live? I'll be releasing the podcast version later this week, plus the Amazon special hardcover edition of “every clock is a handgun pointed at my head” drops soon.
Drop a comment if you're planning to come - helps me prep the right energy for the room.
Details
📅 When: This Sunday
9:45 am, California
12:45 pm, New York
4:45 pm, Ireland, Scotland, UK
2:45 am, Monday, Sydney
(Sorry, Ozzies… It will be available as a replay on subStack & YouTube. Working on a Downunder event… soonish.)
#ActuallyAutistic #DisabilityPoetry #SpokenWord #Neurodiversity #MentalHealthPoetry
Hey, folks…
I'm practically bouncing off the walls here.
The digital edition of every clock is a handgun pointed at my head just went live for pre-release on Amazon. Publishes this coming Monday, 8/26.
And then there’s the Spoken Word Event… reading from the book… tomorrow, Sunday..,.
@actuallyautistic @actuallyaudhd @actuallyadhd
"every clock is a handgun pointed at my head - Songs of Autistic Innocence ...and Experience"
Just launched on Amazon.
#ActuallyAutistic #ADHD #MentalHealthPoetry #DisabilityPoetry
@actuallyautistic @actuallyadhd @actuallyaudhd
"every clock is a handgun pointed at my head - Songs of Autistic Innocence ...and Experience"
Just launched on Amazon.
#ActuallyAutistic #ADHD #MentalHealthPoetry #DisabilityPoetry
"every clock is a handgun pointed at my head - Songs of Autistic Innocence ...and Experience"
Just launched on Amazon.
#ActuallyAutistic #ADHD #MentalHealthPoetry #DisabilityPoetry
Johnny Profane Âû