Stories, poems, ramblings and thoughts, research, letters, art, photography, videos, and more written by neurodivergent and neurotypical indviduals on topics related to the neuro-experience, neuro-identity, and neuro-harmony.

Fiction: The Something May 9, 2025 | Jessica La Tant

The sun streams down glaringly hot until I pass into the shock of the lights that are by no means dim, but are a pale imitation of direct sun. One bulkier boy shoves past, knocking me off balance. I’m taking too long. More and more kids barrel through the door, rushing past me. I scan the room, each kid waves and sits with a smiling face. There isn’t one for me. How does one get a smiling face? I look for empty seats, but what if she’s saving that for someone? What if I sit and they say to go away? What if it’s me? Smiling, smiling, smiling, frowning? She sits in the corner in the back, picking at her notebook, eyes downcast, straight black hair pooling on the table. I slide between desks, backpacks a landmine, keep arms close, don’t take up so much space. I place my hand on the chair, and the girl looks up. The breath catches in my throat as her eyes meet mine. Her brows crease down; a spike shoots my heart. She doesn’t want me here. “Welcome in, everyone sit down, so we can get started.” Her voice sends alarm through my body. The air sits stagnant in my lungs and I sink into the chair. Gloomy girl averts her eyes and I turn mine downcast to the table. Laughter reluctantly leaves the room and hides in children’s mouths bursting from lips in short giggles. Nothing hangs in my mouth but a dry stale jumble of letters. They swirl around down my throat in a disarray of cacophony of not quite thoughts, not quite sentences, not quite words, just sounds. They mix and make little halves of every thought that swirls in my mind. “ . . . photosynthesis is how plants gain nutrients. We need oxygen, they need . . .” The clock is right near the exit. Its hands tick down to count the hours, minutes, then seconds to freedom. Although in this instance, freedom just means not this class anymore. Now there’s another class after this one, then another, and another. Time simply drones on and on and on and we are forever its prisoners . . . —The notes! I’m meant to be taking notes. Each student sits diligently copying down each slide on the powerpoint. Gloomy girl’s perfect neat tracings sit on the page with highlighters dancing along the markings. They’ve already started. When did that happen? Did she tell us to? I’m devoid of any writing utensils or paper at all of course. I feel the pink light on my face as doom seems to shroud my backpack. The shiny metallic zipper will of course rip through the classroom, but maybe I could slide it slowly and that’d be quiet. I reach down. My heart pounds pounds pounds. My fingertips graze the metallic, cold, I pull and zrrrpt. Faces turn. The teacher stops. Something rests on her face, their faces. I rip out my jumble of papers, they crinkle and crackle. My chest lurches, the papers the papers the papers. I pull my notebook onto my desk and maybe if I pretend I was caught up I will be. The something presses itself into the crease of my teacher’s eyebrows and taunts in the giggles of the boys at the table next to me. My heart and I sink into the chair. It’s like they know something, something I don’t, something that they’re all in on together. Something that I don’t—that I’m not allowed—to understand. I swallow the tidal wave of panic. It sinks down into light tension that traces in my fingertips. Gloomy girl pretends she doesn’t know about the something, but I know she does. She doesn’t look at me. The sun streams through the blinds and filters lightly on my crinkled paper. “. . . so this is the oxygen cycle . . . it’s very similar to the water cycle we discussed last week.” Last week!? Do I already know this then!? Why do teachers spend so much time on topics I know everything about and then skip right over the parts that are completely lost to me? I lean back in the chair as she pulls up another slide. I hear her, I do, but I don’t really comprehend it. It’s as if we’re underwater, the words sound like words but carry this murkiness and fog that protects me from the strain of paying attention to them. Gloomy girl seems to comprehend underwater babble though—they all do. They glance up to the slide, listen, read the words, recognition lighting their eyes, then record the process in their notes that do not rest on wrinkled paper with their pencils that aren’t marred from bite marks or mechanical pencils on their last brittle twig of lead. Why did I go through all the trouble of retrieving the paper from my black hole of a bag if I wasn’t going to do anything with it? I collect my thoroughly-chewed number 2 pencil and hold it in my hands. The words from the screen glide through my hands and down to the page, but they skip over my mind which drifts softly back to the thought of Gloomy girl. I don’t know her name. I want to know her name, but we’re several weeks into the school year. We've already done introductions, and we’ve talked once before, about what I have no idea. I should know her name by now, but I don’t. Maybe we were underwater when we spoke? “Now if I could have you all work quietly on the problem for the last ten minutes before you go, that would be great. I’ll collect it at the door before you leave.” Oh no. It’s a diagram of a flower with several blank spaces to fill in words. What words? I look down at my meager notes and don’t find the answers, or if I do, I’m entirely unaware that those scribbled words would solve anything. The silent class chokes me, and I’m locked in place with my hands on the paper and dread in my gut. I don’t want to do this! I don’t know how to do this. How come everyone else seems to have no issues coming up with the answers? They all diligently breeze through their work as I twiddle my thumbs and tap my leg wishing that time was up and somehow simultaneously wishing there was more of it. The ticking hands of the clock, once I cheered forwards on their eternal march, I now know them for what they are—the heralders of my doom. Each tick, tick, tick, brings us closer and closer to—what? What happens at the end of 10—no, 6 minutes? Everyone in class gets up and files to the exit. Gloomy girl goes as well, glad to be rid of me. The teacher takes each paper and sends that smiling face on its way until she gets to the end to discover that I haven’t given her my paper. She asks me why I haven’t done it. I stare quietly into my lap, and say I didn’t know how. She berates me about how much time I had, she tells me we went over all the answers already and that if I don’t know the answer then it’s because I’m lazy and stupid. She’s disappointed in me, and is going to call my mom because I’m a waste of her time. The kids stand at the windows, staring and laughing. They hate me, the teacher hates me, my mom thinks I’ll never amount to anything . . . . Ringing shatters from the speakers. It bounces all along the walls. A lump rises to my throat as every student gets up and files towards the exit. I hear breathing, it's heavy and sporadic, but Gloomy girl isn’t there. I’m alone. It must be me. I look down at the page and there are no words where there should be words where no one else had any trouble putting words, but I couldn’t. The something seems to drift off the paper and float all around me and squeeze me from all sides. I don’t have any air in my lungs, but I feel it whooshing in and out as though it is only visiting in my body but leaving before it can actually make it to my brain. It isn’t doing its job. I didn’t do my job. Blank lines, where there should be answers, answers I don’t have, answers they did. Where do they get the answers? That god awful lecture? That’s where they must be, but I didn’t hear it. Why not? Why don’t I get it? I’m underwater, so maybe I’m not breathing after all? Maybe, it’d be better if I didn’t— Touch! A touch jolts and shocks from my shoulder to the rest of me. Sorry. Me? No, I didn’t say that. “I didn’t mean to scare you. Are you okay?” Brown eyes, weary from years beyond me, wrinkles at the ends, and eyebrows creased upwards, concerned. For me? I try to say something, but it gets blocked. She waits. Did time stop? I clear my throat, “I’m okay.” “Are you sure, Emily? I’m not just here to teach. I’m here to help you too.” She’s warm. Not her hand. She took that away long ago. Her words seem dipped in hot chocolate or a cinnamon roll or wrapped in a fuzzy blanket by the fireplace. I wipe my tears—tears? When did those get there? “I didn’t understand the assignment.”Her eyes shift to my crinkled notes and blank paper. The something rises from them in big bold letters: You’re s-t-u-p-i-d! It taunts me because I know it’s true. Her eyebrows shift, her lips turn upward, and she … is that a laugh? “That I can definitely help you with. Let’s go over it real quick, and then I’ll send you to your next class, okay?” “I . . . I . . . okay.”

JESSICA LA TANT

Jessica La Tant is a 22-year-old bleeding heart who cares way too much and cries about almost everything. She loves pink and yellow and singing and baking and true crime and darkness and spirals into madness and rambling as just your average girl does.

Poem: Seeing the Good April 14, 2025 | Yuliana Aguilar

I feel like no one is going to understand meBecause of my autism,But then I remember my autism makes me special,It is a gift that makes me unique from others,I have to see the good in itBecause it is a part of who I am,So thanks to my autismI have stronger emotions Which is a good thing,It just makes me more human,And thanks to my autismI am more creativeAnd love telling stories and poems,And thanks to my autism I have an eye for detailWhich explains why I am thrivingIn all of my college classes,And thanks to my autism I am a creative problem solver,Whenever I have a problemI just get creativeAnd figure something out,So I chose to see the good in my autismBecause it makes me me,And I wouldn’t change that for the world.

Poem: Seeing the Rain in a Different Light

April 14, 2025 | Yuliana Aguilar

I am autistic and I think that rain is wonderful The rain is beautiful The rain is blueThe rain is funThe rain makes me wet Which I do not like But still it's a beautiful sight The rain is magicalEspecially at night The rain and the moon Can connect in a way I just know it even though I don’t have any proof The rain connects people Especially those who are far away from each other Rain isn’t a darkness It is light that bring life People and things can’t survive without rain I know that I might sound crazy And I just might be But this the way That I feel about the rain It is life, it is bright, and just magical And I am glad to say what I feel on the page Having my voice heard on rain Is a wonderful feeling to be honest While some might not understand me on this I do And that is all that matters.
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