Being perceived as normal is an art.
  My PTSD Atypical brain
is accidentally obvious,
and so I must be practiced and calculated
to stay hidden.

It isn't the cute eccentricities
that give us all mildly embarrassing quirks
that keep me up at night
obsessing over my behavior.
It's the trickle of trauma that seeps out of me
and marinates in with conversations
that should be normal.

It isn't random shoulder shaking sobs
or public screaming matches,
or anything obvious enough
to merit the stares of passerbys.
It's more
a bump in the road,
a single tight knot
in a strand of yarn,
or a piece of eggshell in pancake batter.
Not terrible enough to upset the balance completely,
but your thumb runs over it repeatedly a few times
in annoyance
because you can feel it just enough
to know it shouldn't be there.

It shouldn't be there.

I'm trying to practice
being average.
Practice being quiet when I should,
and learn the pieces of my life
that were traumatic
so I can hide them enough
to get by in a daily vanilla life.

But it's exhausting.