Design by Victoria Bahana

The original formatting has been altered with consultation from the author.

This young kid facing me says suddenly to his dad:

“What’s that noise?”

Ran out of time to shower. Running late. The sun is out, but none of us can see it because it’s held inside grey clouds. I feel that way as well. The kid a seat away from me keeps staring right at me, then looking away when our eyes meet. I try to smile, pull a silly face, but it seems to overwhelm him even more. I get ya, kid. I’m like that as well. I think? I don’t get it either. His hair is blonde, and his dad seems calm but silent, head slightly tilted down, holding a backpack against one leg. Why am I recording this inside my brain? I don’t know.

The one whose atoms make up half of who he is replies:

“It’s the world, mate.”

What was I thinking about again? I don’t know. Do I ever? This tram goes from scheduled start to scheduled end again, again, again, every single day, and I expect myself to be like that. Then, I wonder why I can’t. Do other people feel these things as well? Maybe this kid sitting opposite me does. Why has the word “autism” thrown at me from the psychologist’s mouth shaken me so much? Didn’t I already know? Why didn’t people pick up on it when I was this kid’s age? I always felt untethered. I wish I didn’t have to sit through a psychiatrist furrowing her brows at me to get ADHD meds. What does it mean to live inside a world where so many people can’t afford to have the things they need? Also, why is ADHD spelled in capitals? And why do I feel like the word is yelling at me?

How every time I think

I don’t know how to be alive,

I want the things I am to be a little softer and less slippery. Less fragile and easier to hold. It’d be nice just to let things be the way they are. But, I don’t know how. I don’t know how. Does anyone? Do you also live with fireworks popping off inside your head? Could I hold your thoughts and you hold mine for a second? Would that change anything? If I could feel what this kid is feeling, would I be able to fold it into words? Would that help him? Does his dad know how to hold him? Does he need to? Gosh, I’m gonna be late today. Actually, maybe not that late.

I see people and this world

helping others

allow themselves to be here.

I want to see outside this window. I want to see outside of me. Cars are banking up on Sydney Road. What would this have looked like before Britain’s colonising project built violently on top of what was already there? If it wasn’t for that subjugation, my feet never would’ve touched what will always feel like home to me. Underneath this city, through it, above it and in the earth we breathe, though: what was there before is still here now. Every single molecule inside every single thing… hums. Ah, yes, I can feel it in my lungs. I’m breathing. But how can we stay beside this hum? I hear the noise too, kid. I don’t know how to hold it either. We are it, though. Everyone and everything is. Ah, yep. Me, my head, yours too: all of it and all of us could just keep on disappearing. Forever. But instead…

Kid, let’s…

Listen…

Can you hear it?

It’s the world, mate.