Party Tyger

A poem about autism

I can’t stand going out or staying home and never have

known what to do — are you in or out?

I surf, not well, and fear each wave

of doubt that stares me down, but they say it’s natural for a solitary beast like me: tigers make for awkward company.

I learned to chat and compliment, and furthermore I memorized which stripe to show, and when, and which color pushed the pendulum:

Black or white. Orange I kept within. Somehow I knew, it would seem impolite.

Like all good cubs and girls, I drew inside the lines Until one day, Poseidon rudely howled. I threw a palette up to him, as a rainbow and a prayer —

“Whatever stripe you desire, I shall wear.”

I was brave. I showed up. I tried every shade and rode

the elevator to the top

in full tiger gear, tail in grand switch and sway, toward the party buzz as my heart began to thud — I should’ve stayed away.

They turned to stare.

My glossy coat stood out, it was obvious: I was drowning, and worse — overdressed.

I dove into the hot tub, lost consciousness and regressed. I knew they wanted me to live beneath the sea.

If I could not, they would dine on tiger flesh and turn my stunning hide into a rug.

I exited in drips down the winding stairs went to school, and jumped through hoops and tests and near arrests and the worst, therapists.

This cat can swim but lost the will

to climb

Like all fakes, I entertained by day but after dark, I flew from star to star, in the arid sky.

I lost each stripe, one by one, until I disappeared.

In the ordinary light of day, I’m at best a scraggly thing, declawed. You couldn’t know I mastered Shakespeare as a cub and was magnificent. Until I roared my lines. They poured out

in orange waterfalls. The other animals, mostly colorblind saw only blood.

They attacked, then scattered so

I was alone until the zebra herd gave me books and residence in their whites and blacks

not far outside Paris, France

I attended lectures dryer than the moon purred by experts, fathers, priests whose eloquence oppressed a world of covert tiger-ess-es.

Dry land couldn’t save my skin, because the rains came next. For months, I lapped up puddles

and observed my fur fall off in clumps. I turned a drizzly gray.

The sun came out and bleached the day. I went livid and vanilla, convinced I was simian. It was a crime with no witnesses, including me.

They only want my color when it’s cute. I tucked my ragged tail inside a dingy pin-striped suit.

For forty years I neither roared nor purred I kept my claws to myself and went unheard.

I woke up today and knew I was, had always been a lovely Tyger brutalized

by trying to fit in.