little lights

XXI

I am floating on the heaviest gray could in the sky 

There's no wind, just a soft breeze, and if I squint really hard, I can view the people below,

All wrapped up in their ordinary days, while I am relying on a cloud that could break at any given moment,

The chemical reactions in my head are messy like a thunderstorm, and as the rain begins to pour and I begin to fall from the cloud along with it, I am reminded of how this sensation feels the same as saying the wrong answer aloud in class or thinking of telling somebody I don't want to talk to them

I am messed up, jostled around, with the life or death experiences pushed into the same area as the slightly tense or moderately embarrassing ones-- but instead of the adrenaline pumping my blood and saying go go go, it says hide hide hide, and run run run, 

Worrying the teacher will call on me when I don't know the answer feels the same as walking the streets alone at night, and my entire body will itch to escape itself for hours after I had to admit in front of the entire class that I have no idea what the area of the circle on the board is,

So, I am floating on a raft in a lazy river, the scenery is bare, more so than one might expect

And there is a fork in the water ahead; to the right there are light rapids, bumpy and probably unpleasant... to the left there are jagged rocks and fallen tree branches poking out of the river, white water sloshing loud and angry

And my mind thinks, those are basically the exact same stream. I'm going to die no matter what.