You wanted the glow, not the voltage.
A smile without the current.
You keep calling yourself fragile and then ask for storms.
I learned the forecast. I stood very still.
When was the last time the floor tilted.
When was the last time the glass hummed.
When was the last time the lungs filed a complaint.
When was the last time the lights forgot my name.
I wish it lived far back in the archive.
Today, the air miscalculates.
My head drafts an exit memo.
Good things dim like screensavers;
the rest stays pinned.
Sleep is a hallway with motion sensors,
step once and alarms.
Speech is a form to be filed,
every answer invites an audit.
So I practice forgetting
like it’s a second language.
No more theater in the skull.
Unsubscribe from storms.
I tell the shadow at the door:
wrong address.
It doesn’t leave.
Apparently it has a key I never issued.
It waits like a stray with my handwriting.
We are poorly matched soulmates:
it drinks my air; I set out clean bowls.
Inside, something red writes without ink.
Even so, something recalibrates.
I am not the only light on this street.
Not every hand is a ledger.
Little storm, you are not always wrong.
The answer I kept outsourcing circles back with my face.
Weak is a weather report, not a name.
Today is a low tide, not a prophecy.
Good days are queueing by the door.
I will not cancel them.
I keep my face on silent mode.
Yours ships with prayer hands.
When we pass, the streetlights vote.
Guess who glitches, who gets called a storm.
I file feelings like invoices.
You comp the room and call it mercy.
When the scaffolding drops, the crowd points at the one
already carrying the warnings.
You’re pure the way snow is, until a tire finds it.
I’m a stair without railings, use at your own risk.
Together we make headlines that say “incident,”
but the photo only prints my shadow.
We are the same in the places no one knows:
hairline glass, soft alarms, the old animal that hates empty bowls.
We are different in public:
you do velvet, I do truth.
I told you not to touch the red wire.
You touched it and practiced innocence.
I learned to hold the current without blinking
so the room could go on pretending the lights weren’t mine.
Call me the problem; it paints faster.
You keep “gentle,” I keep “warning.”
We both crack. Only one of us gets labeled the hammer.
You swindle with a choir in the background.
I refuse the ribbon and become the bruise.
When I fell, you logged surprise like a souvenir.
Tell me again you needed me.
You only needed an exit that applauds.
If a culprit must be chosen, pick the one who doesn’t beg.
Fine. Take the halo. Keep the sound off.
I’ll keep the sirens in my mouth.
We both know who paid in body.
We both know who got a refund.
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