i do not feel safe
on the fifth floor
with all the windows locked
and two turns of the deadbolt
don't forget the chair under the door

i do not feel safe
walking home from the grocery store
in this horribly gentrified neighborhood
at 4pm on a sunny
saturday afternoon

i do not feel safe
handing over my clothes to someone else
i know they have to be washed
i've gone too long already
but i bite my lip until my belongings are
back in my line of sight

i do not feel safe
alone in zoom office hours
with my camera off
how can i be hurt through a screen?
but it never reassures me

i do not feel safe
when the electrician comes to fix
the circuit
i called it an electric circle
he does not look at me that way
the way that makes me sit in the
backseat of my own mind
but i cringe when he looks at me
at all

they call it hypervigilance
vigilance
from latin vigilare
"be watchful"
i am watchful, watchful, watchful
maybe that's why i cant fall asleep.

i always find
myself
explaining

why am i always
explaining
explaining
explaining

as if i have to justify
each little thought
any brief phrase
the slightest movement

in anticipation of being
questioned
i answer what they were
never even going to ask

am i really so used
to everyone not believing
me? that explanation
has become an impulse
that is impossible to deny


the terror of who-knows-what
creeps up my left arm until it's
weighed down by lead

it seeps into my blood and my brain
poisoning me now
communication doesn't work and then
communication doesn't work

it soaks into my bones
never letting me forget these habits i've learned
years later remembering to leech out just enough
of the remaining toxin
to keep me stuck in my old ways

stuck
explaining
explaining
explaining

when the image in the mirror is not familiar.
when your sleeves are long because
you're terrified if you look that your arms
simply won't be attached to your hands.

when the world looks like a bad abstract
painting and when the paint starts running.
when the frame isn't straight or even a shape
and no lines are quite straight.

when words go sdrawkcab and your
mouth refuses to cooperate with the shapes
required and the sounds come out warped.

when you seem closer and more caring
because I am capital F ****** and
the love swirls in with the pity.

when the world is wrong and not even
you
can make it right.

the sun set before I left school today
I saw it escaping me from the train platform
hiding behind the horizon

its colder now

it is simply astonishing
how quickly i go from
feeling like fairytale magic with
you
to feeling like the world's
biggest disgrace

the magic fades
and we are left with these
harsh words in this
harsh world

the pixie dust is simply dust
the costumes have lost their meaning
the acting is only words and movement
and the joy becomes a distant
unreachable place
one i feel i am no longer permitted
to travel to

the world has closed it's gates
heaven doesn't want me
hell doesn't need me
so im stuck in the inbetween

with the ghosts and spirits and demons and im
all theirs
nobody to save me or protect me
i watch, invisible, a blowing in the wind
and i reveal to myself how little my
presence is
wanted or needed

how little i
am wanted
or needed

i write poems in my head
poems ill never put down on paper
poems that are as sad as they are poorly-written

i narrate documentaries in my head
scenes from my life that I'll never film
scenes that are more terrifying than aesthetic

i create art pieces in my head
drawings depicting the feelings I'll never articulate
drawings that I'll never have the skill to actually make

i write songs in my head
songs ill never dare to sing aloud
songs with lyrics that haunt my subconscious

i tell the truth in my head
truths that have never passed through my vocal cords
truths will only ever be scribbled in journals nobody will ever read

the difference between imagining and daydreaming is hope