There are two blokes in my head,
neither knows what the other said.
One speaks routine, rules and facts,
the other throws fireworks into the gaps.
One wants the same mug, same chair,
same road, same time, same air.
The other gets bored by half past ten
and wants to rebuild my whole life again.
Autism writes the morning plan,
ADHD spills coffee all over the map.
One says, “Stick to what we know,”
the other’s already fucked off somewhere new.
They don’t share notes.
They don’t translate.
They just argue behind my face
while I’m stood there trying to look alright
in Tesco on a normal Tuesday night.
One needs silence,
one needs sound.
One gets overwhelmed
when too many people are around.
The other gets lonely,
starts craving a crowd,
then five minutes later
everything’s too fucking loud.
One side practises every conversation,
word for word before it begins.
The other opens my mouth too early
and lets the unfiltered bastard win.
So I plan what I’ll say,
then say something else.
Spend three days replaying it
and calling myself every name on the shelf.
One takes things literally,
needs things clear and straight.
The other misses half the sentence
because a fly moved near the gate.
One remembers what you said
on a wet Thursday in 2008.
The other loses my phone
while it’s sitting in my hand,
then makes me twenty minutes late.
That’s the bit people don’t see.
They see one bloke,
shoes on, dressed,
answering questions,
looking composed.
They don’t see the emergency meeting
behind my eyes,
where nobody brought minutes,
the chairman’s gone missing
and some cunt unplugged the lights.
Autism wants order.
ADHD wants a chase.
One builds neat little shelves,
the other empties them across the place.
One can study a subject
until there’s nothing left to know.
The other can’t start washing up
because there are six steps in a row.
I can learn a whole system,
find every fault in the chain,
but stand in front of a pile of laundry
like it’s quantum mechanics again.
I can work for hours
without food, drink or rest,
then fail to reply to one simple text.
Not because I don’t care.
Not because I’m rude.
The message sits there getting heavier
until guilt turns it into a court summons
for a crime I never meant to do.
That’s masking.
It’s running subtitles over yourself
so everybody else stays comfortable.
Sit still.
Don’t interrupt.
Lower your voice.
Stop moving your hands.
Don’t explain too much.
Don’t look annoyed.
Try to look interested.
Try not to look like you’re trying.
Forty years of that
and my whole system blew.
Not one dramatic moment,
just every hidden wire
finally saying,
“No mate, we’re fucking through.”
And when the mask came off,
the two sides got louder.
The one who needed control
lost control of the plan.
The one who chased stimulation
ran the body into the ground again.
So now I live between them,
part referee, part translator,
part exhausted landlord
to two nightmare neighbours
who both think they pay the rent.
One says,
“We need a routine.”
The other says,
“Routine is prison.”
One says,
“We need rest.”
The other says,
“Let’s start a new project at 2am.”
One says,
“People are exhausting.”
The other says,
“Why has nobody messaged?”
One says,
“Don’t change anything.”
The other says,
“Burn it all down,
I’m bored.”
And somehow I have to turn up
as one functioning man.
Pay bills.
Work shifts.
Remember birthdays.
Eat food.
Sleep.
Speak.
Smile at the right time
and not tell Gary from accounts
his story should’ve ended ten minutes ago.
It’s funny until it isn’t.
Until you’re tired from doing nothing
because your brain fought all day.
Until a simple choice feels massive
and you can’t explain why either way.
Until you want to move,
but your body won’t start.
Until you want to stop,
but your thoughts tear off in the dark.
People call it contradiction.
I call it two languages
with no fucking interpreter.
One brain is building a bridge,
the other keeps changing the river.
One needs a map,
the other wants to get lost.
Both demand the wheel,
but neither counts the cost.
Still, somewhere in that argument,
something rare gets made.
The detail from one,
the speed from the other,
the strange connections
nobody else would have discovered.
I can see a dozen angles
before most see the wall.
I can pull order from chaos,
then lose my keys in the hall.
I can turn a bad night
into lines people feel.
Take the mess they can’t explain
and make the bastard real.
That’s the gift.
Not the cute little version
people share online.
The real one,
where brilliance and burnout
drink from the same pint.
So no, I’m not lazy.
I’m not awkward for fun.
I’m carrying two operating systems
that were never designed to run as one.
Yet every day,
I drag them both outside,
zip up the coat,
put the human face on right,
and somehow,
through all that noise and crossed wire,
I still make one man
out of two brains
that would rather set each other on fire.