i can’t do small talk about climate
and share my timid feelings,
i force delay my texts back,
pressing patience into place.
like guiding myself to reality
where i control how i am,
which has never been easy.
but in the challenge of acting normal
in the prolonged stares at the beach,
after the time someone held ice
on my scrapped teenage knees,
i prepared a novel then too.
even then i lived in prose, never knowing
how to be simple, small, consumable.
instead i’m harder to swallow
than the complete truth,
i want to be like them too -
carrying joy and ease in undertones
instead of an AirTag for a brain,
running lines before getting lost
and like a three week trip in August,
i’m still unpacking how to act right.