I choke on words I never speak,
A voice gone thin, a will grown weak.
They crowd my throat like smoke and stone
These thoughts that bloom when I'm alone.

Anxiety wraps tight around
Each breath I take, each subtle sound.
It tells me, Don’t—you’ll say it wrong,
You don’t belong, you don’t belong.

And so I sit in muted war,
A scream locked just behind the door.
While all the world keeps spinning loud,
I vanish slowly in the crowd.

My silence isn't peace or grace
It’s panic sealed behind a face.
It’s hands that shake beneath the sleeve,
A thousand doubts that never leave.

"They’ll never get it," whispers fear,
"Stay small, stay quiet, disappear."
So I obey, and fade from view,
Afraid of what my truth might do.

But deep inside, a war still burns,
A hunger aches, a silence churns.
For every word I long to say,
Another part is stripped away.

Yet still I rise, though barely heard,
A fragile soul with caged-up words.
And maybe someday I will speak
Not polished, proud, or loud—just weak.

But real.

Until that day, I hold the line,
Between collapse and “I am fine.”
This quiet is my battlefield
A place I break
but never yield.