There’s a version of me That drafts the apology Before the breath leaves Pre-edits the bleed trims the teeth Files the grief down to something That won’t snag in your sleep It’s quick with the stitch Needle through narrative Neat little myth About how I’m “fine” How the line didn’t split How the weight didn’t shift When you flinched at the pitch Of a voice that got real for a second Then dipped And I watched It happen Didn’t fight it Didn’t catch it Just felt the subtraction Like a tax on reaction Every truth that came up Got assessed Then fractioned I can tell you the moment It calcified habit Not trauma like thunder More administrative damage A series of looks Tight smiles managed Conversations where silence Was clearly the standard So I learned it Not the pain The conversion How to take what was urgent And make it uncertain How to sand down the surge Till it passed as a version Of “thoughtful” “reserved” Something easy to worship You call it awareness This read on the room This precision But it’s just repetition Of quiet conditions Where presence got measured By lack of incision I don’t raise my voice I erase it Mid-flight Mid-choice Replace it With something that lands Without weight in your hands So you never have to face it I keep it contained Well-trained Well-placed No strain in the frame No trace Of the thing that was there Before I became This acceptable shape in your space There’s a ledger I keep Not on paper in pulse Every almost-said truth Every swallowed result Every time that I felt The room tighten its cult Around comfort and I Made myself the adult Took the hit in the language Shifted cadence rearranged it Made the sentence more spacious Less invasive less dangerous Till the core of the statement Was basically vacant And you nodded Of course you did Clean lines No conflict Nothing to bridge No need to sit With a version of me That might actually live That’s the trade Not forced not made Just quietly paid In a currency shaped Like the parts of yourself You agreed to degrade You say “be yourself” Just keep it contained enough to behave I’ve been praised for restraint Like it wasn’t a cage Like the calm in my tone Wasn’t learned under gaze Like the lack of demand Wasn’t drilled into place By a thousand small moments I read on your face Not anger That’d be easier math Just absence of space When I stepped off the path A withdrawal of air Like the room did the math And decided I wasn’t Worth carrying that So I adjusted Refined to reduction Cut function from function Till all that was left Was a polished obstruction A presence that moves Without making disruption And I miss it Not loudly Not some grand missing piece Just a flicker A fracture A shift underneath When I almost say something That might actually reach Then it folds Every time Like a reflex in spine Like the body decided The risk isn’t mine Like survival’s a script I don’t get to decline And I let it That’s the part I don’t dress up No villain no system Just me at the checkout Counting the cost Of the version I left out There’s no climax here No reclaim no eruption Just a pattern held steady Through years of construction I still walk in full Still feel the instruction Start carving me down To a safer production And I watch it occur Every edit Every blur Every sentence that almost Remembered what it was for Then didn’t And I note it Not poetic Not noble Just noted A quiet subtraction A clean little action A life where the truest thing in me Keeps getting Compacted To fractions ~by Unreadhyperion / Sparky
