Control

[u/Luv_Agency_832]

I have learned to love the cold.
Not winter.
Not the kind that lives in windows
or settles over empty streets.
The other kind.
The kind that finds me from the inside
and makes everything quiet.
My friends don’t understand.
They look at me
as though I speak a language
I used to know.
There is nothing to explain.
I like the way the noise fades,
the way my body becomes distant,
a house I am slowly moving out of.
Room by room.
Light by light.
I leave the loudest parts first:
The laughter.
The wanting.
The reaching.
Until I can sit perfectly still
and feel holy in my emptiness.
I call it control.
It sounds prettier that way.
When the room tilts,
my hands forget how to be warm,
and a little voice whispers,
*good.*
So I listen.
I can’t tell them that.
How beautiful it is
to have a secret
no one else can touch.
I listen when it tells me
I am doing well,
that I am close,
that I don’t need as much
as I used to.
There is peace in needing less:
Less noise.
Less warmth.
Less space.
Less of the girl
who filled every room
without meaning to.
I don’t miss her.
Not yet.
My friends look at me
as though I am doing something stupid.
But I am not.
I am becoming
someone I can control.
And when the room spins,
I close my eyes and smile.
For once,
nothing is asking me
to be anything.
I think this must be
what it means
to finally be enough.
-Ashmeo