reading room
Too Much Company
i wake up already performing. my face remembers before i do. each word rehearsed, each silence monitored.
the world wants a version of me it can understand, so i smile on cue, tidy my strangeness, and call it normal.
people say i'm easy to talk to. they mean i make space for their noise. they mean i vanish neatly.
i spend my days surrounded by voices, each one tugging at the edges of me. the room hums with presence and i can't find the quiet part where i begin.
they talk in headlines and half-thoughts, floating comfortably on the surface of things. i listen from underneath, translating, translating, translating— until the meanings blur.
by evening i've spoken too much and said nothing true. my throat aches from all the pretending.
i keep the parts of me that might disturb them— the questions, the grief, the disbelief in what they worship. i hide them like fragile code. to show them would be an error.
i call it socialising, but it feels more like dissolving. loneliness grows louder the more people i let near. their chatter fills the air but not the silence inside it.
when i'm finally alone, it's not peace— just another form of noise, this time my own. the masks fall off slowly, like dust after a storm.
but sometimes, with ed, or brayed, or ember, the storm stops.
the air stills. no translation required. we talk about nothing and somehow it heals me. the noise outside the moment fades to static.
their laughter lands softly, unweighted by performance. their quiet is real. it doesn't ask me to adjust.
in that stillness i feel seen without being studied, held without being held up.
for a while i am both alone and not.
for a while the loneliness rests.
for a while too much company feels like enough.
— Lilith