For years
I've watched you turn your pain
into comedic relief;
how you bend your sadness
into a shape people can laugh at.
They see your manufactured light,
but not the electricity it costs you.
I see the sparks from the ends of cords
beneath your decaying stage,
the exhaustion you hide
behind your intentionally ill-timed jokes.
You call it throwing up,
but it’s galaxies to me.
Those tiny fractures in your control,
where the real you leaks through.
I could spend the rest of my life
learning the language of your unguarding,
the dialect your silence speaks
when you think no one’s fluent in you.
I’ve watched you for years.
How carefully you build the illusion of ease,
how you hide inside the rhythm of your punchlines,
as if laughter could double as a lock.
but I’ve seen the door swing open.
the tremble in your voice when it’s too quiet.
the truth that escapes
before you can edit it into irony.
You think you’re slipping.
I think you’re showing me
the blueprint of your becoming.
and I have loved you
through every draft—
the ones that grin,
the ones that grieve,
the ones that refuse to be written down.
I don’t need you to stop performing.
I just need you to know
that someone has always been listening
for the pauses between your laughter,
the fault lines in your composure
where the truth hums low,
steady,
unapologetic…
and entirely you.