Tomamond for autistic shutdown
I am no bridge
veins and tributaries finally drying up, my body lies heavy as a lake,
I am up to my neck in stagnant waters simultaneously at rest and in shell shock,
fairy shrimp darting between the deftly floating ropes of my hair,
looking to hoard their cysts of certain life in the follicles, murmuring
in encouragement; we shall both wake again!
every slight noise sends electric ripples ricocheting right down
to the belly of the beast, the beast being me, my face swilling
in and out of sight whilst the water level wavers.
I am lying flat my limbs separating like cattail reeds in resignation —
this is not certain death, it’s just another wednesday, feeling my bones sizzling, dissolving.
suddenly they are laying me into the damp earth again, six feet freshly dug, perhaps
hoping that this time my body submits to the soil, that the peat will reclaim its anomaly
another nameless bog body another unidentifiable witch doing her nation’s duty.
my country’s history is built on buried secrets, mass graves, unwilling syringes bringing
silence. What is one more undiscovered unfathomable female generation?
I am no bridge (but my presence can stop the natural current)
unspeaking, I succumb to the fatigue, letting body and brain unearth their convergence
this lethargic drowning requires patience and an understanding humans do not possess
soon, Charon is by my side, nodding at me, tilting his paddy cap in greeting,
he knows not to pry my clenched teeth apart in search of an euro for his time, his kindness,
but allows some memories to be unwillingly washed from me, the gift of his mercy
baptism, corked fresh from the Styx.
he has experienced my sedentary moments before and knows I am far from dead
this sinking paralysis, this amnesia, are in fact what allows me to live.
so rest, and feel no guilt,
forget, and feel no pain
awaken, and rebuild.
Contextual Note: Medieval Irish bards wrote a special genre of lake-burst poetry known as ‘tomamand’. A lake-burst is “a phenomenon referred to in Irish mythology, in which a previously non-existent lake comes into being, often when a grave is being dug.”