Human Interior

I sit motionless
until the world stops feeling louder
than my own breathing

I loosen my hands
from the steering wheel

I remind myself
that fear is not prophecy

That the nervous system
can turn uncertainty
into catastrophe
if given enough silence

Outside
someone returns a shopping cart
Someone adjusts sunglasses
beneath a blue sky
Someone continues living
without realizing
another human being nearby
is quietly trying
to come back to themselves

I watch ordinary life carefully
when this happens

The woman loading groceries
The wind moving through trees
The automatic doors opening and closing

Small evidence
that reality remains intact

Sometimes I lower the windows
just to feel air move

Sometimes I put my hand against my chest
as if calming an injured animal

Sometimes I say my own name
softly inside my head
to remind myself
I am still here

And eventually
the world returns gradually

Not all at once

First the parking lot
Then the sunlight
Then my body

Then the understanding
that I am not losing my mind

Only carrying too much of it
at the same time

Sometimes the tears arrive so quietly
I notice only the taste

Salt gathering at the corner of my mouth
like the body attempting
to return itself to the sea

The instinct to disappear
To heal unseen

I think I am like cats in that way

I hide to cure myself

Inside parked vehicles
Empty driveways
Silent kitchens after midnight

Anywhere the world cannot watch me
trying to gather myself back together

Sometimes I taste my own tears
and think how strange it is
that grief is made of salt too

as though the body already understands
that survival occasionally requires
licking your own wounds
in solitude

Until eventually
the breathing slows

The thoughts loosen

The ordinary world resumes its shape

And I return quietly to it
carrying myself carefully
like something once injured

still learning
that not every silence
means danger