Shameless

Scaling Mount Marcy that night as Elvis died...

“Bad Water, Death Valley,” digital illustration by the author.

Live long enough  
Ya get a lot right,  
Get a lot wrong.  
Get to know  
Well enough  
Ya can’t be a saint  
Lurking in shadow…  
Living life perfectly 
Shameless. 

Shameless.  
Oh let me be  
Shameless…  
No sun sets  
On a painless life,  
So no moon shines  
On a stainless wife.  
Oh let me be… come  
Shameless.  

Scaling Mount Marcy  
That night as Elvis died,  
Got branded a Mountebank  
As my sister grew colder.  

Stalking Death Valley  
Same sister… now dead… to me  
Same stars… chill my shoulders  
Now living life perfectly  
Shameless…  

Shameless.  
Oh let me be  
Shameless…  
No peak caps  
An aimless life,  
And no grave ever filled  
By a blameless knife.  
Oh let me be… come  
Shameless…

No mask hides 
The pain in life,  
So no words can
Explain my fight.  
So, let me Be… come  
Shameless.

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Click to return to the complete poetry collection, “every clock is a handgun pointed at my head — Songs of Autistic Innocence …and Experience.”

▶️Previously published as “Autism in Poetry: Shameless” with discussion and accompanying artwork.