Fight-or-Flight

I don’t know when it started,

But my body acts like the world is ending

I wake up already on guard,

Like my heart slept with its shoes on.

Nothing’s wrong,

But something feels wrong

and I can’t explain it to anyone

without sounding dramatic, broken, or too much.

I love people, Ireally do,

But some part of me is always waiting

For them to disappear.

Even when someone holds me,

There’s this small scared voice saying,

"Don’t get used to it."

"Don’t trust it."

"Don’t make it home."

I wish I could shut it off.

I wish I could just let someone love me

Without dissecting every word,

Every silence, every pause.

I hate how my hands shake

Whenever something feels too good.

I hate how my mind keeps replaying Old hurts

Like they’re warnings for the future.

I hate that I can’t fully feel safe

Even with people who prove they care.

It doesn’t feel like living,

It feels like bracing.

Like I’m constantly preparing

For something awful

That maybe won’t even come.

Like I’m rehearsing for heartbreak

Before it ever happens.

I want to rest.

I want to breathe without thinking.

I want to feel love

Without scanning for danger behind it.

I want to stop expecting people to vanish

Just because others did.

Sometimes I wonder

What it would feel like

To wake up and not feel that weight

In the center of my chest,

The one that says

"Be ready,"

"Be alert,"

"Don’t relax."

Sometimes I imagine

What it might be like

To actually trust the softness I’m given.

To believe someone means it

When they say they love me.

To not overthink every kindness

Like it’s some trick I should’ve seen coming.

There’s a part of me

Small, but still alive

That says maybe I deserve that.

Maybe I deserve a life

that doesn’t feel like a battlefield.

Maybe I deserve calm mornings, steady hands

And love that doesn’t scare me.

I don’t know how to get there yet.

But I swear I’m trying.

Trying to stay. to believe, 

Trying to let myself soften

Even when everything in me

Wants to run.

I’m tired of surviving.

I want to live.

One day,

I hope I will.

And maybe when that day comes,

I’ll finally recognize myself,

As someone who made it

All the way to gentleness.

-dmnd