let the decisions decide

i don't know what to say.

i don't much like being interviewed.

words feel remote and impenetrable like pain.

sentences sound overly rehearsed.

i say my own name as though it is something i am only now learning how to pronounce properly.

i am grateful i am not being asked to write it down.

ymlei, milye, elimy.

i feel on the outside of everything, and everything feels on the outside of that.

even the details i usually keep closely guarded on the inside are suddenly a flimsy non-protective sheath i want to shed like a reptile on the run.

like a rodent on the run.

a scared mouse. the blind kind.

see

how

i

run

i hear myself speaking and i feel like i do when i'm walking home at night afraid, watching myself from the outside being afraid to walk home.

i'm enacting a reenactment of the event as it happens.

and as it happens, it happens.