The Economy of Wonder

Abstract

This collection of poems examines stigma, discrimination, and the lived interiority of autistic experience through lyric, metaphor, and allegory. Each piece translates facets of autistic life into poetic forms that render visible what is often minimized or misunderstood: sensory overwhelm, the pressure to mask, internalized perfectionism, cycles of burnout, and the persistence of anxiety. The poems resist medicalized framings by positioning these experiences as forms of survival, meaning-making, and resistance. “Anxiety as a Service Animal” and “Perfectionism as a Personal Trainer” figure disabling forces as companions and instructors, exposing the double bind of constraint and intimacy. “Mask with Instructions” and “Stigma as Office Wallpaper” document how expectations of performance and ambient prejudice structure everyday interactions. “Sensory Apocalypse” and “Cartographies of the Autistic Mind” destabilize conventional views of normalcy and reaffirm autistic epistemologies that value alternative ways of sensing, mapping, and interpreting the world. Lastly, “Elegy for the Burnout Kid” confronts the collapse of youthful ambition under relentless productivity and ableism. Together, these poems offer an account of autistic life that is vulnerable, defiant, and embedded in critiques of normative culture and the violence of its unspoken demands.