A deeply personal poetic offering, an exploration of the quiet, ever-present watchfulness that comes with raising a child with autism…
by: James William Wulfe
The space heater glows orange, our makeshift sun
in this plywood kingdom where January seeps through
floorboards and windows, uninvited. Louisiana cold is different—
wet enough to touch your bones, to mock the myth
that South means warm.
His meltdown started with a flowing sink faucet. Too loud.
Three hours later, my back against the bathroom door,
listening to him rock and thud his head in rhythm
against the tub. I count breaths instead of minutes,
resumes unfinished on my cracked phone screen.
They don't make applications for men like me—
space for "I might disappear mid-interview
when a family member calls—again." The latest manager
didn't bother hiding his relief when I left early.
Pity looks worse than scorn.
My son's arms swing like a metronome when he's happy.
His laugh, a wild, unfiltered thing that makes strangers
stare in the cereal aisle. The good days are blue sky
breaking through storm clouds—rare enough to catalog,
to store like firewood for the darker stretches.
Last night I found him arranging his hot wheels by color
at 10 PM, methodical as a scientist, while I calculated
how many more days the freeze will last,
how many more automated rejection emails
before the electricity notice turns from yellow to red.
His world is louder, brighter, harder than mine,
yet I'm the one who sometimes breaks in the shed,
cursing into a rolled-up rag. Still, when he finally sleeps,
I watch his chest rise and fall and understand:
vigilance is its own brutal kind of love.
Tomorrow might explode like a pipe bomb or open
like a fist. Either way, we'll face it—two mismatched
fighters backed into the same corner, throwing
whatever punches we can manage, keeping each other
standing for one more frost-bitten round.
James William Wulfe is a writer, storyteller, and proud introvert who finds solace in creativity and cheap wine. Residing in a quiet town just north of New Orleans, Louisiana, he balances the chaos of fatherhood-raising four children-with the solitude of the written word.
