Look—don’t say “I’m good” like that, you clipped the end of it,
kinda bit off the word like you didn’t wanna finish it.
I’ve heard you when you’re fine, this ain’t that, it’s different,
this is you trimmin’ sentences down so you don’t have to sit in it.
And I’m not tryna press you, I’m just sayin’ I see it,
you keep changin’ the subject the second it gets heated,
like “work’s been a lot,” yeah, cool, I believe it—
but the way that you breathe when you say it don’t mean it.
I used to do that exact same dance, same deflect, same dodge,
same “nah, I’m straight,” same laugh, same nod,
whole time somethin’ sit in my chest like a lock
I kept tappin’ like it might open if I never called it a problem.
It don’t show up loud, it’s not dramatic or big,
it’s a quiet little pull in the back of your ribs,
like you halfway forget it exists—then it hits
when you’re starin’ at nothin’ and you don’t wanna sit with the drift.
You stretchin’ your route, takin’ extra few turns,
find a reason to stop so you don’t gotta learn
what it is that you feel when it finally surfaces first—
you just keep it deferred.
Then it slips.
Mid-sentence.
You pause—
like you missed it.
Nah.
That wasn’t a glitch, that was somethin’ insistin’.
It don’t bang on the door, it just leans on the latch,
it don’t yell, it just stacks, it don’t break, it just cracks.
You can laugh, you can mask, you can bury it back,
it’ll circle the block, then be right where you at.
It don’t need you to say it, don’t care if you try,
it just sits in your chest like it’s biding its time.
You can swear you’re good—cool, lie if you like,
it already knows what you keepin’ inside.
You remember your dad when he snapped over dumb shit?
how the whole room went stiff but nobody said nothin’?
how you swore you’d never let yourself become it—
then you heard that same tone when you said what you said last week, wasn’t it?
And you caught it—
quick.
Tried to box it,
flip it,
“nah, I’m just tired,” you dropped it—
didn’t stick though, it followed you into the next couple convos, it’s logic.
See it don’t disappear ‘cause you renamed the moment,
it just waits in the pattern, then shows when it’s open,
and the more that you choke it, the more it condenses,
til it press on your chest in a way you can’t code-switch.
Every “I’m fine” intertwine with the times you declined
to define what was mine, what was yours, what was mine,
now it’s line over line, it’s a pile you can’t hide,
every time you went quiet just widened the size—
and it’s buildin’ in bits, little slips, little splits,
every clipped little sentence gettin’ stitched into this,
every innocent “nah” gettin’ pinned to a twist,
now you livin’ in defense like you hidin’ a list,
of the shit you don’t say but it sits in your system,
and it itches and lifts when you think you dismissed it—
…you didn’t.
You’re not okay.
Not ruined, not done—just runnin’ a loop,
tryna outrun a truth that keeps comin’ for you,
it ain’t loud, it ain’t proud, it don’t care what you prove,
it just shows up the second you ain’t got a move.
It’s the night when it’s quiet and you ain’t got a screen,
and your brain start connectin’ all the gaps in between,
and the version you dodged steps directly on scene—
now you stuck in the same room you swore you’d never be.
It don’t bang on the door, it just leans on the latch,
it don’t yell, it just stacks, it don’t break, it just cracks.
You can laugh, you can mask, you can bury it back,
it’ll circle the block, then be right where you at.
So what, you just live like that? keep loopin’ the spin?
nah—that’s how it digs deeper, gets rooted within.
You don’t beat it by runnin’, you don’t mute it to win,
you just sit there a minute and let it talk ‘til it ends.
‘cause the second you listen, it shifts the position,
all that tension you gripped start to slip and to loosen,
every breath you were missin’ start hittin’ in rhythm,
now the pressure ain’t crushin’, it’s movin’, it’s different,
and it’s messy as hell, yeah it’s layered, it’s thick,
every memory buried try to surface at once,
but you stand in the middle instead of evadin’ the hit—
and it don’t own you the same when you face what it is.
It ain’t magic, it ain’t some force out to get you,
it’s just everything real you kept pushin’ off schedule,
every “later” you stacked comin’ back for a settle,
every truth you postponed now collectin’ its metal.
Call it whatever, I don’t care what you name it,
just don’t act like it’s fake or some outside danger,
it’s you—just unfiltered, uncut, uncontained,
and it waits ‘til you stop tryna fight it to face it.
It don’t knock, it don’t beg, it don’t ask you to try,
it just sits in your chest like it’s watchin’ you lie.
You can run, you can hide, you can bury it deep—
it’ll be there the second you finally speak.
It don’t carry your name, it don’t care who you been,
it just shows you yourself when you finally give in.