But If My Brain...

This sonnet is an entry I made to a Twitter competition (back when it was Twitter and I still used it) for poems describing the experience of ADHD. Today is the first day of ADHD Awareness Month, so enjoy this glimpse into my brain, and please share with the other ADHD people in your life!

If brains were birds, my brain would be a crow,
Collecting all the shiny things I see.
A hummingbird, it flitters to and fro:
Now here, now there, in every place I'll be.

If brains were fish, I'd be a swimming shark,
Which never stops or slows, or it may drown.
Or no—a school of minnows in the dark,
That flash with fractured light: a broken crown.

But brains aren't fish, nor are they birds that fly;
No species can contain my mental part.
And as I look towards the sea and sky,
A multitude of thoughts leap from my heart.

And like the beat of wings or sound of rain,
The constant hum of thoughts is my refrain.