there’s four pictures of my autistic brother, David,
hanging in the rooms of the house
he is called Chube, Dave, Chob, Chupe, and Buster
Nipping-tube, Nippington, Dave’s Brain, Brainiac the Maniac
Dave’s Brain on a Stick, His Cranial Tube, Vindicated, and Vudic.
he is called by many names
from my writing desk I see the six-year-old child
gold-headed, framed, mellow with time
by his beloved vintage Fisher Price cash register.
downstairs, he’s looking vacant and adolescent
from the picture hung by the paint-peeling windows
where he used to climb out when he lived here.
in my parents’ room, he’s a toothy yellow angel
pastel autism glued to the heart walls with gentle memory
he’s staring from the china hutch as well
David’s nicknames go round and round
like a dragonfly spinning in a child’s jar—
I think of him puking spaghetti and eating four hot dogs
walking with his respite workers round and round
at the playground in the city at nightfall
light-footed and laughing and crying—
now he’s twenty-one
his twisting belts in his hands go round and round
his eyes, like spinning tops, go round and round
his visiting hours go round and round
we sometimes walk with him around the rooms
single-file, round and round.
life with David was cyclical—
dinner, bathtubs, school bus, bedtime, repeat
it’s hard to feel him when he’s not here
finding his plastic hot dogs and Memory Game cards
seven years after his exile
it seems so asymmetrical to find him
rarely, like a glimpse in a trick mirror, only once in a while
when he lived in 360 circles for so long
and we lived circles around his spinning dance
life with David was illogical and logical at the same time.
this is a song for the unborn child
who only exists in picture frames
and we are so fearful around him that we keep our distance
so he is framed and unreachable, still alive.
this is a song for the unborn child
whose life was like a freight train on the tracks
whose life was like a mule pounding sorghum in a mill
round and round and round and round
till the aroma of dust and sweetness
became memory and nothing and everything.
this is the song for the unborn child
it’s good to see his smiling face from picture frames
to remember how he once was
not to think of how he is now.
David is the sum total of life
in his smile, there is death and livingness
silence and screaming, colors and numbers,
but mostly the repetitiveness of everyday—
he always seems to go round and round and round.
he helps me remember
we are all unborn
we are all straining at reality
we are star fire on a river.
the cars go by, people go upstairs and downstairs
but we’re still here, we’re still living
it’s good to know we’re still smiling tonight
safe from the creeping darkness of time.
Lydia Quattrochi, whose pen name is L. Quattrochi, is seventeen years old, a homeschooler, a chocolate addict, a filler of notebook journals. and poet. She has had her work published in Teen Ink magazine and on the international blog site Weekly Ramblings (and also in Pen Point, a once-a-year magazine exclusively filled by homeschooled students). Her dream is to work in early childhood education, and to write stories and poems that children can relate to. While her goal in the near future is to move out of her small farm town, Lydia wants to write forever so she can inspire more people to laugh and to cry.