👉 YouTube Video of this live spoken word performance

👉 “every clock is a handgun pointed at my head,” Amazon book & ebook

Cold Open

I feel like a brilliant creative soul

as if…

trapped in a damaged body

& neurology

trying to communicate with the world

through an intermittently short-circuiting transistor radio

playing through static

& the distortion

& sparking circuits…

to just be heard.

Do you understand at all what I mean?

Intro

You're listening to AutisticAF Out Loud. One voice. Raw. Real. Fiercely Neurodivergent. Since 1953.

Season 5, Episode 7 is special. This live spoken word performance comes straight from my first Amazon book, "every clock is a handgun pointed at my head." Raw insight into my autism… and ADHD.

No hidden meanings. Nothing to decode. Just real life. Meant for autistics who need to be seen… And for family, allies, and researchers who want to see us truly. Not through Hollywood's lens of Rain Man and Love on the Spectrum.

Just one 72-year-old autistic elder's truth. I'm Johnny Profane.

Content Note: Frank discussion of trauma, including sexual abuse. Because… frankly… most autistics I've known survived trauma. This material may be triggering.

Subscribers to my Substack receive a free PDF of the entire book. Links to Amazon book and ebook are in the podcast notes.

Btw, tomorrow, Sunday 8/31, I'm doing another live performance for subscribers. 12:45 Eastern, 4:45 UTC.

With that? Let's dive right in.

Live Spoken Word Performance, 8/24/25

1. Dancing Close to the Edge of the Noise

Thought i’d start with a metaphor… something that autistics see…right away. And I think will help.. This autist at least… be seen.

#AskingAuDHDists…bear with me a minute.I'm autistic+ADHD.71.

i feel likea brilliant creative soulas if…

trapped in a damaged body& neurology

trying to communicatewith the world

through an intermittentlyshort-circuiting transistor radio

playing through static

& the distortion& sparking circuits…

to just be heard.

do you understand at all what I mean?

#ActuallyAutistic #ADHD #ReallyAuDHD

2. That Song I'll Never Sing to My Son

So let me build another bridge. Who doesn’t relate to children.

Like some angelWith a dislocated shoulderHalf f l y i n g H a l f fallingYounger to olderFrom the day I was born.

Tumbling to earthRushing up belowBody on f i r eH e a r t aflameIn s l o – m o ,

a horror picture show…

To a silent piano score…

Like that songI’ll never singTo my son.Like that song

Like this song….

Don’t be a dick

Real talk…

It’s harder than you think…

Listen up…

Maybe…

Don’t mask… protecting others

Don’t please yourself

Less than bosses & lovers…

Hold up…

Most of all…

Don’t forget

To have a kid

Like you might

Forget

That call-in contest

You just knew

You could win

Cuz you knew all the words….

Gimme a minute.

I need a minute…

Like some angel

Thrown outta heaven

H a l f falling

Half f l y i n g

From what should’ve been…

The day I was born.

Like that song

On that game show…

That I’ll never sing…

To that son

I never had

Hell,

Like this song.

3. My Friend Billy

One last bridge. Before we maybe jump off the cliff… They say we don’t having emotions. Or make friends. Clue… I ain’t Spock.

65

Going on death,

Woke to a frozen world

Where no car crept

A day no singing bird

Was left alive

A day another friend

Sighed his last breath

Polar vortex

Blew thru my trailer

Wrapped windows in blankets

Stale air hung like failure

Cranked the oven

Cracked its door

Sealed the entries to my life

Like a bunker in war

Settled in for a day alone

Picked up the phone

My only open door…

Wars, rumors of wars

Disasters revealed

Disasters concealed

Across its screen

A dying world's dreams

I read the news,

A politician lies

Local man dies…

Wind froze my heart

Another sun sets

That'll never rise

Another friend

Where I can't hear his cries

Billy…

I wish I were that poet

Say, Yeats sweet voice

Or at least L. Cohen

Raised in bitter rejoice

To toast his life of rough edges

But I see him clear

Tears in his eyes

Laffing

How he outraced cops

Across Arizona deserts

Or burnt a scumbag dealer

Or how his child came to be born

Crying

About a woman he loved

Those kids he missed seeing

Locked in his room

Picking at scabs

Dying

One bottle at a time

He lived for love

He lived for laughs

He left little more

Than a church full of folks

Who missed him for an hour

He was Billy.

And now years later

He won't leave my autistic mind

And still laffs in my autistic heart

Teaching it how to praise.

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4. every clock is a handgun pointed at my head

So now we… maybe… know each other a little better. Let's cut deeper… My time? It can’t be measured. Not a dimension… perhaps yours. It’s a force. A violent force.

III

Every clock is a handgun pointed at my headEvery tick, tick… fucking tickTolling Fear, Doom… dreadClick. Slide. Cock… click.

Every night a mantra echoes through my headTV static… a crazy-making humSinging Dream, Drempt… dead…Not done. Not done. Not done… undone

10, 9, 8… Dread7, 6, 5… Fear4, 3, 2… BEEP.Shoot the moon… or the country next doorCountdown. Deadline. Bow down… dead.

Bound behind doors, bound in my headPace, paces, pacing… pacedEvery BEEP.Of the phone.Stops…my heart....I crash out with a scream for escape

II

Woods

Deep woods

Deepest woods

My ears flyfrom bird songto bird song.

A raptor circles then spiralsCrossing lines now dead

Wind steals my breathTaking words never said

This skin bag of atmosphereBreathes new airWhen the sun risesFirst it is cooThen it gets warmThe day passes

Clouds above my head.Shaped by wind

Outside my bodyThe same wind

Inside my bodyTheSameWindYet…

I

10, 9, 8… Dread7, 6, 5… Fear4, 3, 2… BEEP.Shoot the moon… or the country next doorCountdown. Deadline. Bow down… dead.

Every clock is a handgun pointed at my head

Zero

5. Believe I'll Ch-Ch-Change My Shirt

Someone said an average writer borrows. The other kinds steal out right. Bowie, Robert Johnson, Marvin Gaye? I owe you guys one.

Sunlight cracks my window,

Gotta be midday.

Kick myself a pathway

Just to pee into the bowl.

Like a peek into that deepest hole,

Zombie in the Mirror won’t let me look away —

Same filthy shirt as yesterday,

Body and soul.

I Gotta Change.

They say, “Ya gotta ch-ch-change.

New day’s a-coming.

Cuz that same old,

It’s getting fucking old.”

They say, “Shed that old skin

For one of truest gold…”

I. Gotta. Change.

Believe I’ll ch-ch-change

My…

Shirt.

Karma’s a bitch dog, in heat.

She prowls my old mind,

Sleeps beside me every night…

Feasting on defeats.

No stone blocks this empty tomb

But I can’t leave her behind...

Memories of the darkest kind

Blind my way outta this room...

T H A T change I can not make—

Faced all the strange this heart can take…

I gotta change…

I gotta change…

I gotta change…

I. Gotta. Change.

Believe I’ll ch-ch-change

My…

Shirt.

*Break it down…*

*I believe, I believe, I’ll go back home.*

*I believe, I believe, I’ll go back home.*

*You can mistreat me here, babe,*

*But you can’t when I get home…*

*Waitress smiles,*

*checkout jokes…*

*shoplifting contact*

*with little hope*

*casual chic in the cubicle*

*hoarding freak in the domicile*

*Molestation devastation*

*Frustration infestation*

*losing jobs*

*taking jabs*

*Meltdown, shutdown… losing your shit*

*Choose the label for your best fit*

*Can’t see the forest*

*For the leaves,*

*That’s what’s brought me*

*To my knees…*

New day’s never coming.

And that same old,

Got fucking older.

I yearn to shed that old skin

I crave that shiny gold…

I. Gotta. Change.

Believe I’ll ch-ch-change

My…

Shirt.

6. The Body Abides

This one’s rough. For me. Maybe for you. Trauma’s… well, a bitch.

"Like I told you

Nothing really happened

Can't sleep is all..."

He repeats his view,

"The body watches.

The body ALWAYS

Fucking watches."

"Yeah, he kissed me

Fathers do that.

Yeah, it was weird but..."

He whispers me,

"Your body, your witness.

And *this* witness ALWAYS

Fucking watches."

Then he leans in…

"What if he'd kissed

your *sister's* lips...?"

"I'd fucking kill him."

*That's when...*

i see me

in his mirror

watching myself

watch my self

transparently autistic

a son no more,

yet the body...

abides.

images, never shared

images… never dared

hard, wet, frantic

fumbling… bare

rage

dark rage

Screaming RAGE

*i'd fucking kill him*

*fucking kill him*

*kill him*

*him.*

i rise...

so

slowly

and fucking smash that mirror

i rock, i sway…

i rub one red eye.

i stand, I stare…

I sigh, I say,

"My body watches

The body *ALWAYS*

Fucking watches…"

into a mirror staring nowhere

As I close his office door...

I abide.

Ad

Ok. Before we jump back in… just a heads up that links to this live YouTube performance and the Amazon books are waiting in the show notes.

7. Slouching toward Montauk

I want to tell you a story. Short. Cuz, well, time’s short. Maybe the end Times. Who better to turn inside out than, well Yeats… and his Second Coming.

... Let’s say… I’m in my 70s now. Happiest time of my autistic life.

Not too worried about some fabulous unachievable autistic Nirvana… These days…

Now, here’s that story.

My grandfather was a… complex man.

He slept beside an orderly nightstand.

Tucking Mein Kampf tight

In its tidy drawer every night.

And…

He used to take me sailing out to Montauk Point… a sea journey from Bay Shore, Long Island… at least as he sailed it on the ocean side… swinging out into the deep water…

In his telling, it was a fabulous place.

Where a sandstone lighthouse lit the waves, warning of danger.

Where the grass on the golf course grew sideways.

And every single damn tree bowed toward the West…

From the eternal wind blowing onshore.

His heaven on earth, he called it…

.

.

.

The wind carries all the sound away…

But its roar in my ears

creates a kind of hushed silence

inside me

.

.

.

I always experience high anxiety

as we lose sight of the shore.

Just sky, waves & constant rolling…

Disoriented.

Like a whiteout in a blizzard.

If you throw in some seasickness.

But after an hour or so, I make my way to the prow. And sit.

Wind on my face

Sun on my body

Salt breeze filling my chest…

Quieting my heart.

Anxiety? Disorientation?

I observe

The fixed lighthouse

In the far off dusk.

Splashing its light… bravely

Into the spray.

Knowing deep

In its soft

Native sandstone heart…

Time and tide wait for it.

.

.

.

I stop caring about the shoreline. And the anxious hell waiting for me on the other side. For hours at a time.

.

.

.

.

Who cares about sailing toward Montauk

and its fabulous trees…

anymore…

Or.. ever again?

I’m busy breathing in…

this

fabulous moment

here

Outro

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👉 YouTube Video of this live spoken word performance

👉 “every clock is a handgun pointed at my head,” Amazon book & ebook

#AutisticAF Out Loud Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. Click to receive new posts free… and a free PDF of the Amazon book “every clock is a handgun pointed at my head.” To support my work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

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