I was in the waiting room at the dentist — one of those quiet, timeless zones where every second crawls. I opened the app store, expecting nothing, and downloaded the first game that didn’t look like a candy clone. It had a penguin. That’s all I noticed.

The moment the game started, I was racing down icy slopes, dodging fish crates, and jumping frozen gaps like my life depended on it. That tiny bird was moving fast, and so was my heartbeat. It didn’t take long for me to realize I wasn’t just passing time anymore — I was fully in it.

I was in the waiting room at the dentist — one of those quiet, timeless zones where every second crawls. I opened the app store, expecting nothing, and downloaded the first game that didn’t look like a candy clone. It had a penguin. That’s all I noticed.

The moment the game started, I was racing down icy slopes, dodging fish crates, and jumping frozen gaps like my life depended on it. That tiny bird was moving fast, and so was my heartbeat. It didn’t take long for me to realize I wasn’t just passing time anymore — I was fully in it.

You are my world
Father
And in you world
I want to live
Forever Father
Also, it is amazing
How you have
Created your world
Before you created
Human beings
You have made the sky blue
With your holy hands
AIso, Father you have made
The birds with your holy hands
The last thing you made
After you made the human beings
Was the Ocean
During the Summer
The human beings spend there
Time
Swimming in there Ocean
All day long
Until the night arrives
The night arrives at 9:00 PM
The sun goes down
And we all see the sunset

People count the years
by candles and quiet tears.
The twenties, they say,
are when we wait
for the first cry
from a miracle
just learning to breathe.

But some of us, like me,
never quite grow up.
Peter Pan weeps
each time the rain brushes my shoulders.
I come alive again
only in fleeting moments,
like the string that’s slipped
from a flying kite.

Just days ago,
that child stirred again —
flickering like a candle,
reaching toward her teacher,
a man with nothing
but quiet grace,
yet rich in the kind of ways

AIdo's soul is alive God
Because you kept him alive God
AIdo's soul is dirty with
Blood stains
Please God wash AIdo's soul
And make it whiter than snow
After you wash AIdo's soul put
A bandaid so that the cut can
Heal
Because AIdo knows there is a
Cut in his soul
The cut is small, and the size
Of his little fingers

Nonverbal (though he could talk)
most of his responses
happened to be witnessed
as his characteristic
and courtesy enigmatic
trademark shoulder shrug.

If born free and clear today
skilled professional diagnosticians
employed within the mental health field,
would probably unanimously agree
he met criteria
as high functioning autistic spectrum
predicated upon withdrawn
and introverted behavior classic indications
after observing him in the classroom
just another brick in the wall.

As a baby boomer gifted with mental block,

Joy reaches out for every eternity,
well known and endorsed perhaps,
so it might well justify,
itself in doing so but then I emphasise,
the world has the need for,
gaiety which is so vital today,
and one supposes the prospect for,
mood lift must be uppermost,
the golden essence we must cherish,
at each stage the stage we are currently living,
or should be when pressed,
the people you invariably face,
must grin as they persevere,
their way in faltering steps one must say,
and the hilarity of hilarities that encroach,

“I’ve never felt so tired,” they say.  A common sentence, used so frequently I wonder if they feel anything else. I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t.  I see the moments when all the energy leaves and they sink. The sinking is fairly new; it didn’t start till 8th grade. I remember when they told me they were scared. Scared because they had never felt that numb before, so exhausted.  I hear when their voice loses its power at the end of the day.  Their loud laugh turned into a weak hum.  A hum of all the words they want to but can’t say.