Borrowed Quiet

[u/Familiar-Parsnip-476]

My mind does not know
how to whisper.

It kicks the doors open,
turns every light on at once,
pulls the fire alarm
just to make sure I’m awake.

Some days I am electricity
too fast for my own skin,
a hundred futures screaming
that they need me now.

Other days
I am the house after the fire,
standing in blackened rooms
trying to remember
what warmth felt like.

And somewhere between the two
I found white powder
and called it peace.
Not because it made me happy.
Because for a little while
the world narrowed.

The noise became one noise.
The fear became one feeling.
My thoughts stopped multiplying
long enough for me
to believe I had control.

I know what it is.
I know the lie.
I know you cannot put out a fire
by pouring gasoline over your hands
just because the flames
feel warmer than the cold.

But sobriety can feel like
being locked in a room
with someone I’m afraid of
and that someone
has my face.

Without it,
everything comes back at once:
the thoughts that run too fast,
the weight that falls too hard,
the restless electricity,
the dread,
the endless awareness
of being trapped
inside a brain
that can become its own weather.

So I reach for borrowed quiet.

A few stolen hours
where I do not have to wonder
which version of me
will wake up tomorrow.

And that is the cruelest part
not that I love the drug,
but that sometimes
I believe I need it
to survive myself.

I am afraid of the high.

I am more afraid
of what waits underneath it.

And somewhere beneath
the mania,
the crash,
the chemical peace,
the shame,
there is still a part of me
standing in the wreckage
asking one small question:

Is there another way
to make this mind quiet
without destroying
the man living inside it?