They asked what I was doing with my time.
Not like concern.
Like a form with a required field.
I named a few things.
They nodded.
Nothing clicked into place.
Someone else said
you’re very good in a crisis.
Which meant: stay here.
Which meant: don’t ask.
I was never lost.
I was uninsulated.
They said it must have led somewhere.
They like lines that converge.
They like maps that forgive the terrain.
I learned how to hold the room
while the room decided nothing.
I learned how to translate panic
into steps other people could follow.
They stopped asking for a while.
That’s how you know you’re useful.
I was never lost.
I was uninsulated.
Time passed without ceremony.
The questions changed tense.
What did you do.
What came of it.
Would you do it again.
I noticed how some lives
never need defending.
How drift becomes exploration
once rent is theoretical.
Silence reads differently
depending on who can afford it.
I was never lost.
I was uninsulated.
They thanked me.
They always do.
Then they closed the door
I had been holding.
Later, someone said
you should really find your purpose.
As if exposure were confusion.
As if survival were a detour.
I did not correct them.
There was no field for that.
I was never lost.
I was uninsulated.
- UpsilonA
Indeed. I feel this.