what’s wrong?
is my least favorite question
because
sometimes i don’t know the answer
i didn’t know what a meltdown was
even though i had them all the time
and so i trained myself to make something up
to find the fracture that caused the collapse
to explain the implosion and the sadness
public sadness is an obligation
it’s an obligation to stay sad
lest someone insist that i’m just doing it
for attention
they do not accept its capricious transience
they do not accept the way it wobbles in and out
and most of all
they do not accept that sometimes
sadness is a lie
meltdowns are not anger
shutdowns are not sadness
acedia is not depression
these are shimmering illustions
misunderstood moods
what’s wrong?
is a demand for explanation
when i have torn the banal quiet
and folded it into my overstimulated soul
it carries the faulty presupposition
that something tangible is wrong
that i can point to this thing or that
as an explanation
it can’t all be part of the mosaic
it can’t just be the moment where
the calm is tipped into chaos
it can’t be a summation of
really honestly now that’s enough
it is a confrontation
it is a demand for restitution
it is centering your discomfort
and not my overwhelm
if i said nothing
because nothing was wrong
then well-meaning armchair psychologists
would tear my chest open
with their fingers
run their fingernails
through the gore that was my soul
in search of
what’s wrong?
so i’d convince myself of an answer
an answer that they would accept
that kid was bullying me
my pet goldfish died
i’m stressed out from homework
i don’t understand this assignment
anything that they would accept
and so i programmed my own brain
to assign a cause to my sadness
a presupposition upon a presupposition
because
meltdowns are not anger
shutdowns are not sadness
acedia is not depression
these are shimmering illustions
misunderstood moods
how can something be making me sad
when i’m not sad in the first place
the hypothesis is false
and so the conclusion is irrelevant
so i’ll tell you now
what i wish i could have known
to tell them when i was a child
nothing’s wrong
because i’m not really sad
i’m just
for the moment
a little bit
misaligned
04.18.23