Tourniquet
The ones who see us, and the ones we lose.
If I knew what to say
I could spend days and days
whiling away with you
the time…
I’m glad you see me.
I’d like to pull a privacy bubble around us,
block the rest out,
let you into the architecture of me,
show your eyes the rooms
I learned to keep locked.
I made a trade early…
sold myself for safety,
bartered the future
for a tourniquet.
Interest accrued.
I built a house with the wrong blueprints.
Ticked boxes. Filled rooms.
Moved through the motions like a swimmer
who’s forgotten
they’re drowning.
Most were boxes I ticked.
Never gasped. Never wept. Never felt
the floor drop away.
I confused transaction
for recognition…
used to know the difference,
before I needed it
to mean something,
anything.
Before, with you,
it was something.
Now I covet them…
their eyes, their heat, their attention.
Vanity whore, collecting proof
I still exist.
But you…
How did I lose you
and not understand
I’d lost my own breath?
— UpsilonA
