I Was Valedictorian and all I Have to Show for it is this Consolation Happy Meal Toy and other Poetry by Tyler Cordeiro

By Tyler Cordeiro

A poem about having to leave college because of my improperly accommodated disabilities.

Wanderlust of the Solo-cup Beer Droplet

Just like you expected,
you
Leave pirate themed college
party
Early
First day
Bathroom stall.
Knees to chin.
Voice echo soundwave
Of friendly frat boys arms
linked.
Interrupts sensory cave.
No hold at bay!

Ballooning ships strung
on drunk
breath-cast
This is too fast.
You’re not ready.
Is that your autism?
Or the sheer force
Of someone telling you
that you can’t?
Do
you know the difference?
Do you know who you are?

It’s all too much
You are too much.
All held in too long.
You puke. Puke off the
plank because it hurts
To be told there’s nothing
wrong
Until you can’t live in
their world
Drunken outcast tie him
rowboat
Mourning.

You try so hard.
Mom said eat healthy
But the dining hall vitamin
D (C?) tastes dull on your tongue.
Pizza ship wafers
Sustenance on ravenous
ubiquity
Living like them, the crew
of college vessel
Enjoying this experience,
going with the flow
Find friends, rank, love,
a place to go.
They crumble to nothing
Not worth the wretched
tummy!
The shit-show.

Shit. The deep blue toilet
pain
All screaming from the
depths of this maybe
That wrings your heart
cold ship flag
Toilet paper dry.
Oh god… why
try?

How it sodden mingles with
high contrast sky,
How that goes down the
whirlpool
Spinning towards anything
So lost.

You aren’t the captain
of your life.
Can’t sail, raise hand
towards it
Each effort, no avail.
Sleep in the depth of you
Till the bell calls.
The ambulance skit
Rescue ship waiting to
take you away.
You lost control of yourself
again.

***

the second poem is about my experience working at McDonalds at 17

I Was Valedictorian and all I Have to Show for it is this Consolation Happy Meal Toy

Dreams Like Fast
Food Service; Gone Fast:
Boy fired from McDonalds

Waits for a ride on the corner from
mom
Outside, in the maelstrom
Sodden with hot oil rain sizzling on
metal grates,
Cannot face them inside, gnawing
Eating him whole like burgers and fries
on their plates,
Consuming his potential every time
he could not meet their eyes.
He does not even try to thrive.
He knows that he’d be burned alive.

The phone-clock strikes five,
tick tick,
Time goes by
It’s much too early to be outside
He needs a life.
He should be picking up his friends
after his night-shift
The teenage dancing stars,
Moon-spot-light

Missed the memo,
Went to the corner, sick.
Home to mommy, burned out quick,

Alone.

A home,
That was all that he wanted.
Not one given to him, but found through
accomplishment
Four walls, a roof, clad to keep out
winter
A diagnosis to tell him why he was
always different

Why he could get
perfect grades but not work a cash register
He wanted big-dipper arms to fall in
like coins in hand
Assurance of his intelligence.
A land where he could rest in the pure
warmth of burning divergence
Lighting the world, brighter than those
stars.

But this is what was kept from him.
He was told he was too smart to be
autistic
Too eloquent to struggle
Too damn good at knowing why the world
pushes us forward
To never be able to drive,
Stay alive, thrive.

His heart, tenebre bread-stove of embers
Extinguished before they shine.
In the seasonal marmalade heart of
hoping
He could be saved in time
But McDonalds has already changed the
seasonal pie!

Denied, trash from which he came.
Packet lips releasing honey mustard
flames
Made spicy by the very nurturers by
name
Mom, dad, doctors,
They all refused to acknowledge his
autism.
Until it swelled his tongue inept and
wordless.

Thought, maybe, he’d be easier to throw
away.
Mcnuggets container,
The outcast soapbox stage,
Cardboard crate on concrete

A home, for sure, by definition.
The “help” they gave him.
No IEP, half hearted 504,
ADHD and anxiety diagnosis.
Lacking nourishment,
In school-therapy session
Four walls, a roof, bare minimum.

Just enough support to
Box him in, smother that heart
To tell him something
was wrong but not what.
Rush cold body to life under raining
strife

By the pure heat of their breath,
The box: distorted paper, shot with
rain.
Fights in vain,
Caves, just gives in,
The loss of life,
His death.

It was too late,
She found him in the parking lot,
Or under the rope of a disco ball moon,
hung
Staring stoic,
Approaching death.

Taking shelter under the crate,
Rat, vermin, leech, dead weight.
Chipped bones, sharp claws.

Scratching impotently at what they
cannot reach

They deemed him creature,
Vulture of left-over scraps
Selfish.
Unworthy of the help he tries to take.
Their pink-milkshake brains
Slurp slurred by the impermanence
Of his intelligence, showing one moment,
Invisible the next.
Did they even try to see it?
They refused to nurture a mind,
Unable to think how they’d expect.

Refused to support a life
When not another belt in the capitalist
machine that grinds
Plastic knives:
Lethal.
A simple job:
Impossible.
Simple tasks:
Unable.
Never invited
To their table.

He cries by the fast-food hut
Watches the faint stars’ home-coming
banquet
He’s out-shut, in a rut.
Life done.

He’ll be asleep, highest shelf
Plastic rope around neck
Before they even start to feast on
moldy insides of the self-kept
The restaurant buzzes on without him.
Suiting customer’s hedonism
With fake meat and faker perfection.
Just like the water
Falls all around what’s left
Of his expired aspirations

Tyler Cordeiro is an authentically unique 18 year-old poet, Rhode Island native, language lover, gourmand of all things French, but mostly his cat: Artemis. He attends Allegheny College online. As a transgender, late diagnosed autistic person, he knows first hand what it’s like to feel like an outcast. Through his poetry, he attempts to start a revolution of weirdos wired together with words. He has done this by becoming the Deputy Youth Poetry Ambassador of Rhode Island, self publishing two books on Amazon entitled Salt Water Roses and How to Unobscure a Spectrum, this is just the beginning for him, but he hates to brag. All poetry aside, the only thing you should know about him is that he cares enough to change the world solely by pure will, but he’s always willing to work for it too.