Calm Outside, Chaos Inside

It's the way your phone goes quiet after you put it face down, not because nobody's

texting, but because you don't wanna see the screen light up and feel your

stomach tighten for no reason. You wake up, you wash your face, you answer politely,

you move through the day like the kind of person who has it handled. You look calm in

the mirror, you sound calm on the phone, you even laugh at the right moments.

And yet, the moment the door closes, the moment the room goes still,

the moment the world stops asking for your "I'm good," something in you starts running thoughts,

memories, imagined conversations, old disappointments with new names, a storm you keep