“Hear What?” — When the World Says It’s Quiet But My Brain Says Otherwise “Why are you up so early?” my mom asked this morning, surprised to see me awake before my usual time. I stared at her, exhausted and on edge. “Don’t you hear that?” I said. She paused. “Hear what?” And just like that, I felt like I was losing my mind. Because I *did* hear something—something loud, vibrating, piercing. The never-ending song of a cicada right outside my bedroom window. A sound that might register to others as background noise, if they notice it at all. But to me? It was like a siren made of static and bone. The frequency cut through my walls, my thoughts, and my ability to rest. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t block it out. And no one else could even hear it. Being autistic means my sensory world is cranked to a volume most people don’t notice. It means I hear lights hum, electricity buzz, and insects scream. It means that while others sleep peacefully through summer sounds, I’m curled up ...

A Formal Petition to the Feathered Knights To the noble birds who once called the window outside my room home— I know we’ve had our differences. I’ve grumbled. I’ve complained. I may have even threatened to evict you with muttered curses and half-hearted shoe tosses. Your early morning chirping was not appreciated by a sleep-deprived autistic who wrestles with insomnia and a brain that refuses to shut off. But oh, how the tides have turned. For now, I find myself haunted by a new tenant: the relentless, vibrating, high-frequency Cicada of Doom . Its siren song—made with actual rib bones, by the way—is both biologically fascinating and absolutely torturous to my nervous system. Its buzz drills into my skull with the intensity of a thousand dentist tools on loop. I cannot rest. I cannot think. I cannot even scream because I’m too overstimulated to formulate words. So, to the birds: I take it all back. Your chirps, your fluttering wings, your constant nest rearranging—I would ...