impediment litany

By [sarah] Cavar

                    (for Mel Baggs &after             the month of april)

​​autistic in the mouth
autistic in the month of the cruel joke.
 
autistic in the stomach of my butterflies
autistic in the chapping
 
of the solar plexus.
autistic all along
 
the bias grain.
 
autistic in the width of my survival
-mode. yes yes even
 
autistic in the fucking
architecture.
 
autistic in this chicest kennel.
 
autistic in the veritable codex
of bad ideas.

---

a small something

By [sarah] Cavar

alights
beside in bed. a small
Torch flickles the wanting.
a small something        glews
w fleas & lines
 
a sweater
with delight         sweats a body
full of feud                   a clinging
shapegrammar shift
 
a small something
 
does not look fine
repeat
Does not look fine
In that in that in
 
a small something
 
a mere mechanism
of subterfuge: step one
commit, step two
refuse
 
step 3:
indicate
in the pick of litter,
a smallself

---

Autism Narrative

By [sarah] Cavar

When I was young I held my pencil
in a balled fist.
 
This is not a metaphor.
 
I sport a chipped tooth
Between my thumb and index finger             it prepares
 
My capacious extraction.
 
I am not sure I believe in all the things wrong with me.
I know just that I am a cat person: accustomed
to cohabiting alone.
 
(If I am lucky this torment
ed catalogue of sadness will
 
Carry on!)
 
This mountain I have considered.
 
I have considered subsisting this mountain.
I have considered submitting this mountain.
 
I have considered summiting this mountain
&
 
impressed each
 
star                  I am am
igara fault.
 
My mind is a map of this perfect body.
 
I determine to method so beautiful and rapturous
break   my       hors     e                     bit
by sorry bit.

---

Differential Diagnosis (III)

By [sarah] Cavar

I have been sitting at your table for years now.
I am making an appointment with fate.
I can hardly stomach all the cashews you are feeding me!
I can hardly mind the milk when biscuits are still to be found.
I believe fat e is a thing that can be tempted.
I am not sure you understand me clearly.
I am not sure this strange little world contains a noose.
I do not think anyone I know smells fear.
I believe fear exists inside the odor I offer you.
I think my own capacity for living has somehow inhibited— 
 
I tore my sugar box at the seams.
I tore the scenes up, and the curtains too.
I do not exist outside specific contexts.
I cannot read or write.
I can stop hurting myself if I try harder.
I pull harder on this mantle and
I burn the text alive.

---

[sarah] Cavar is a PhD student, writer, and critically Mad transgender-about-town. Their debut novel, Failure to Comply, is forthcoming with featherproof books (2024). Cavar is editor-in-chief of Stone of Madness press, and has had work published in CRAFT Literary, Split Lip Magazine, Electric Lit, and elsewhere. More at www.cavar.club, zirk.us/@cavar, and @cavarsarah on twitter.