They call me normal
because the building stands.
They do not ask
what was poured into the foundations…
the child‑sized void,
the column cracking at eighteen,
the sudden mathematics of homelessness.
I learned subtraction early:
mother, country, name.
I learned chemistry later…
hash, speed, E, acid,
mushrooms blooming in blackout rooms,
heroin like a dimmer switch,
alcohol, the most social poison
smiling as it erases you.
They say I’m fine
because I function.
Because I lead.
Because I cross oceans.
Because I speak in boardrooms
with the accent of survival
sanded smooth.
They do not see the dissociation…
the fire escape in the mind,
the body humming in a chair
while I watch from above,
clinical, accurate, gone.
They recoil at the dark
but need it.
Lean in, then flinch…
tourists of damage.
I am useful to them.
Unsettling.
I am the man who changed his name
and survived it.
Think about that.
They want the miracle
without the blood arithmetic.
The titan
without the punishment.
I am angry
because anger stayed
when love became conditional,
when childhood collapsed into labor,
when strength was mistaken for safety.
I am not broken.
Not sad.
I am compressed…
a star held together
by forces no one acknowledges.
They call me normal,
and that is the cruelest lie…
because it erases the cost
and leaves me alone
with the receipt.
— UpsilonA