No escape.
No disappearing into the haze I crave.
I’m still fucking here, trapped in this skin.
My hand shakes as it slips away.
My knees buckle. I crash onto the toilet.
The bass from the stage vibrates the porcelain seat.
Every inhale digs its heels into my throat,
breath not wanting to fill me.
Every exhale floods and chokes,
breath not wanting to stay in me either.
I don’t cry in public. I don’t.
But the tears are climbing the barbed wire wrapped around my windpipe.
Then they pool in my eyes,
my vision swimming, lungs shot.
I have bullet holes where breath used to live.
And I think I’m running out of time.
Then—bang.
A knock on the bathroom stall, rude as fuck.
“Someone’s in here,” I manage,
throat tight, voice fake-normal.
I breathe in slow,
convinced I can fake calm if I ration it.
They knock again.
“I SAID I’M FUCKING IN HERE.”
It shakes out of me with more tears flooding the beds of my eyes.
My whole body hardens to hold it back,
freezing like a kid trying not to cry in public.
But then a tear slips out after hiding between my bones all night,
just waiting to die, splashing against my thigh.
I fold into myself and finally fucking break.
