What if one day…
What if one day
I stop pretending I'm okay,
and nobody notices anyway?
Not because I suddenly became weak,
not because I wanted anyone to feel sorry for me,
but because the smile finally gave out,
and underneath it there was nothing
performing for anyone anymore.
What if one day
someone looks at me and still doesn't see it?
Not the jokes.
Not the laughter.
Not the "I'm good, bro."
Not the version of me
that knows exactly what to say
so nobody asks a second question —
because I trained them not to.
What if they never notice
that my silence was never peace.
That it was a room I locked from the inside
and stopped checking the door of.
There are thoughts inside me
I've stopped trying to explain.
Not because I forgot them.
Because explaining them
never made them smaller.
And maybe that's where the anger lives now.
Not as a reaction anymore.
As a resident.
People see the anger
and think it's the whole house.
They don't see the years underneath it,
every goodbye I filed away,
every time I needed someone
and quietly decided
I could survive without asking —
until surviving became
the only thing I knew how to do,
and living stopped being on the list.
I kept everything.
And I called it strength
because that's what I was taught.
Be a man.
Endure it.
Keep moving.
Don't cry.
Don't complain.
Don't let them see you breaking —
so I didn't break where anyone could watch.
I got good at the smile.
Too good.
I could laugh while my mind was somewhere colder.
I could say "I'm fine"
and mean it the way a recording means something.
Until the smile cracked
and I found out
I liked it better broken.
At least broken didn't lie.
Sometimes I think Ghost had the right idea.
Quiet.
Detached.
Watching from somewhere nobody can reach him,
because nobody can lose what they can't touch.
Ghost doesn't explain himself.
Ghost doesn't need anyone.
Ghost doesn't lie awake
wondering who's still keeping track of him.
But I'm not Ghost.
I'm Powell.
And Powell feels things
he's stopped telling people about.
He loves deeply and says nothing.
He worries deeply and says nothing.
He remembers every name
that ever mattered to him,
even the ones who forgot to remember him back.
And more and more, lately,
he wonders if he's the exception —
the one person those names are supposed to hold,
who keeps slipping through anyway.
Sometimes I feel like a burden.
I used to write that sentence and cross it out.
I don't cross it out anymore.
Bliss.
Harmony.
Joy.
Sonia.
Shannelle.
Mom.
Dad.
The names that used to pull me back
from wherever my head goes at 3 a.m.
Lately they still show up.
They just sound further away.
Like a house I used to live in,
lights still on,
and I'm standing outside it in the cold
not sure anymore
if I still have a key.
And I keep asking myself
what if one day
their names stop being loud enough
to pull me back all the way.
What if one day
I finally say "I wasn't okay"
and it doesn't fix anything,
because some truths
arrive years after they would have mattered.
What if one day
I stop waking up already fighting
to be someone worth the trouble of loving.
What if one day
the quiet in my head
isn't peace, and isn't rage either —
just quiet,
the kind I don't know what to do with.
Maybe that day won't arrive loudly.
Maybe there won't be some dramatic moment.
Maybe it'll happen quietly.
One night
where my mind finally goes still enough
to hear my own heartbeat—
and I don't reach for anyone to tell.
I keep circling back to Nairobi,
to Mom's voice, to Sonia, to the sound
of Harmony and Joy laughing somewhere in another room,
like a man checking a pulse
that isn't his.
I want to tell you I made it farther
than I thought I would.
I don't know yet if that's true.