Always On Guard

I do not rest, not really. Even when my body lies down, my mind keeps pacing the walls like a soldier that never got the signal the war is over. Every sound is a threat, every silence a trap waiting to spring. I read rooms like scriptures, studying eyes, measuring breaths, searching for the tremor that says: danger. It’s exhausting, but my bones have memorized it this sharpness, this hunger to detect the storm before it breaks. To trust feels reckless, to soften feels fatal. I wasn’t born this way. I was made. Pain taught me how to see what others miss, how to hear the footsteps no one else hears. And though the lesson keeps me alive, it also keeps me prisoner. Still, I can’t let go. Because somewhere inside me a child is still whispering: If you stop watching, it will happen again.