Dear Mother

I’m aware it’s almost 2 months since you wrote back Tess / your beautiful fragments / snippets of life with a baby / of mothering / it’s been longer since I’ve written / I haven’t written since April actually / I’m learning that my brain works like this / that sometimes I need a break / I also learned very recently that I am autistic and adhd / which means I’ve been revisiting fragmented memories of my life / trying to piece it all back together with this new knowing / new explanations of why I’m always anxious / why I’m so overstimulated / why my writing is suited to fragments / to poems that move abruptly / diverting to the next restless thoughts / I haven’t actually told many people / mostly because I don’t know how to respond to the inevitable / you don’t look autistic / you cope so well / I never would have thought that about you / everyone has autism nowadays / autism never existed / what even is audhd? / also because I don’t feel quite autistic enough to belong to the club / which sounds quite autistic / but it’s a spectrum they say / perhaps I’m lower on the spectrum / but still enough to be diagnosed / but now what?